


More Than A Heavy Rain

by Mildredo



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:39:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildredo/pseuds/Mildredo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-college life isn’t the dream Kurt and Blaine had imagined it would be. Life isn’t working out the way that they planned it, and when everything gets too tough, Blaine walks out, leaving Kurt to pick up the pieces. Two years later, Kurt has moved on and created something of a life for himself back in Lima. But a reunion of the former New Directions brings Blaine back into Kurt’s life, and brings into question everything Kurt thought he had figured out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Kurt stumbled into the apartment, wrenching his key out of the lock and blinking hard as his retinas adjusted to the shock of light coming from the streetlight outside. He grunted as he rubbed his eyes and slammed the door hard, cringing as the doorjamb creaked and rattled. He threw his bag carelessly onto the sofa and toed off his shoes, flinging them to somewhere he hoped was near a wall or the door. Two steps from the bedroom he tripped, falling through the open door and face first onto the end of the bed. There had been few times he was thankful for having such a tiny apartment, but making that fall without breaking his neck was one of them. Standing up, he stood and turned around to check what he had tripped on. Blaine’s shoes were in a heap in the doorway, shoelaces tangled, mocking him for not noticing them. Kurt kicked them hard across the room so that they hit the back of the sofa with a dull, satisfying thud. He sighed and set about preparing for bed. He stripped out of his brown polyester pants and shirt, and climbed under the cold sheets, not even attempting to fix his grease-soaked hair or his stinking, sweaty skin.

He had finished flipping burgers twenty minutes ago and he was due to be pouring coffee, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, in six hours. The other side of the bed was still slightly warm when Kurt reached out across the sheets. Blaine would have left for his night shift at the drugstore not ten minutes before Kurt had arrived home. He would go from there straight into eight hours in a depressing teenage clothing chain store and be home by nine, by which time Kurt would’ve finished his barista shift and would be attempting to tutor a bright but frustrating fourteen year old through the AP exams her school and her parents were forcing her to take way, way too young. After being paid not nearly enough money by her disgustingly rich parents, Kurt would go back to flipping burgers and get home ten minutes after Blaine had left for the drugstore.  
Their schedules were impossible to juggle; it was confusing and tiring and it had been this way for five months. When Blaine graduated from NYADA, they were so ready to take the city by storm. They had been auditioning and meeting with agents and it was so new and exciting and for a moment, it felt like it was really going to happen. But the money ran out and the student loans kicked in. The rent needed to be paid, the auditions weren’t going anywhere and agents were increasingly disinterested. Kurt wasn’t sure the last time he even saw Blaine for longer than a ten minute overlap in schedules. They’d never had a day off together - they’d never had a day off - and the only way either of them knew where the other was the elaborate chart pinned to the refrigerator.

It would be worth it, worth the stress and the aching bones and the separation, if it were working. If they were managing to pay the bills and the rent and even save a little. It would be worth it, temporarily. It wasn’t working. They were working themselves to the bone and still, every month the rent payment ended up having to be a little bit less than it was supposed to be (and every month they promised their terrifying landlord that they’d catch up next month). Every month, the electricity bill went up even though they never turned the lights on, the gas bill went up even though they never used it and every month they were a little more broke than they had started out.  
The empty bed, the hint of Blaine’s existence tangled in the cotton, felt like a kick in the stomach every time. Kurt rolled over onto Blaine’s side, trying to soak up the only part of him that was left, letting his scent mix with the stench of grease and sweat. Kurt buried his face in the pillow, breathed a lungful of Blaine and fell fitfully asleep.  
Kurt got home late again the next day, like every day. With the fall drawing in, he was beginning to forget what the apartment looked like in the daylight. A plate of scraps was on the coffee table and next to it a half-empty glass of water. Blaine had been there at some point, he had left his mark, but the oven was cold and the water he’d left in the sink was cold too. Kurt hated when Blaine didn’t clear up and he loved it too. It meant he had to clean Blaine’s mess up or it wouldn’t be done at all and it would just sit there, decomposing, falling apart.

Blaine left signs of his continued existence by leaving mess, leaving plates with scraps and sinks filled with cold water soaking the cooked-on sauce off the pan. Kurt left a sign of his own existence by cleaning it up. Blaine would come home to an equally empty apartment, but the things he left would have moved and he knew Kurt had been home. Kurt would leave his own mark - a wrapper from a chocolate bar he scarfed down for quick energy or a half-finished cup of tea, and Blaine would move them too. Kurt imagined Blaine felt the same way about it as he did. He hoped he did. It was something like communication, a way of saying ‘hi, I’m here, I miss you, this won’t be forever, this can’t be forever.’  
They used to leave each other notes on the fridge - little messages of love, quotes or song lyrics or just a hello. When the magnetic notepad ran out of pages, the notes stopped too. The magnetic strip still hung there, attached to two rectangles of card that used to contain hundreds of little sheets of paper. The pieces of card dangled uselessly, barely touching, coming together just at the end, separated by the formerly useful binding. Kurt kept meaning to throw it out but every time he reached for it, he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t ready to throw it all out yet. He just poured the cold water away, scrubbed the pan clean and curled up on the sofa. Going to bed felt too lonely some nights, even if it was warmer, so sometimes he just slept on the couch, covered in a blanket, knowing that he’d have to get through another long day with a crick in his neck and an aching back. It was better than the aching loneliness. It was better than waking up and reaching out, half-asleep, across a vast empty expanse of sheets, waiting for his fingers to bump against something warm and hard and mortal. But he only ever felt more and more cold, empty cotton until the bed dropped away and his hand was left dangling over the edge and he remembered that his bed had only seen one occupant at a time for months now. Kurt couldn’t remember the last time they’d shared the bed. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d said I love you, the last time they kissed, the last time they’d had a conversation that both lasted more than a couple of minutes and wasn’t entirely about the price of a bill.  
It was temporary. Kurt told himself that over and over and over. It was temporary. It was just for now, just until they managed to get themselves back on their feet. It would make them stronger. Make them more appreciative of each other. Make it all worth it when they could afford to buy the good cheese, afford to take a hot shower, afford a wedding.  
Lying to his dad might just have been the worst part of it all for Kurt. He knew that Burt wouldn’t hesitate to help if he knew; he would pay a few bills or help with the rent, put a few dollars in Kurt’s account every month so he didn’t have to worry. Kurt didn’t want to admit to living like this, to this failure at the first hurdle of being a real adult. Blaine hadn’t told his parents, either. They were both too stubborn. Never wanting to admit that they made a mistake, that they were young and naive and thought that they could make it by themselves in Manhattan as a pair of college graduates with degrees that qualified them for exactly one thing: performing. It turned out it was hard to get any kind of worthwhile job after performing arts school, with the acting jobs going to the professionally experienced and agents who weren’t interested in anyone without professional experience.  
They should’ve been more careful. They should’ve lived in a cheaper part of New York and worked out better schedules and - well, it was easy to think about everything they should’ve done, tossing and turning on a sofa covered by a thin blanket. It was easy to count your errors when they were already made. It was hard to unmake them, though. Kurt had tried. No bank would give loans to broke college graduates already desperately in debt. No terrifying landlord lets a couple of kids off the rent. No one helped, even when he’d asked and begged and offered compromises. No one cared. They were just two kids who’d gotten ideas above their station and screwed everything up.  
Eighteen days. There had been a lull in customers and Kurt had spent it absent-mindedly cleaning the coffee machine, counting in his head. It had been eighteen days since he’d seen Blaine. They’d had a thirty-minute overlap in their schedules that day and they had used it to argue about what the maximum shower temperature should be in order to save money on the bill. They’d made up over the phone that evening and agreed that they were okay and that fighting about shower temperatures was really dumb. They hadn’t overlapped since. Kurt hadn’t figured out the exact date of the last time they’d kissed yet, but it was before that fight. He was beginning to wonder how long he could cope with just signs of Blaine, no Blaine-in-the-flesh, but a group of college kids had piled in looking for a jolt between classes and the train of thought was blissfully broken. Eighteen days since he had seen Blaine. A month since he kissed Blaine. Five months since Blaine graduated. They had been so optimistic, so full of promise and youth. Kurt felt like he’d aged twenty years in the past few months. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

 

Kurt was lounging in the break room on day twenty, trying to grab five minutes of sleep, when he felt the sofa dip beside him. A nap was proving futile, so he opened his eyes and turned his head. Polly was sitting beside him, hands firmly in her lap, bolt upright like she was about to burst with the need to say whatever she was going to say. He liked Polly - she was nineteen but she looked twelve, with shoulder length dark hair she was always flipping around. She was an English major, working part time, and Kurt’s favorite shifts were the ones when she was working too. Growing up in New York with English parents had left her with a lilting transatlantic accent, which Kurt found either adorable or irritating depending on how long he had been awake.

“Yes?” Kurt grunted at her. Today, she was irritating.

“You’re cheerful.”

“You’re sarcastic.”

“What can I say, I’m a people person,” Polly winked. “How long has it been this time?”

Kurt sighed heavily and let himself fall backwards into the sofa cushions. “Three weeks tomorrow. I’ve tidied his mess, he’s tidied mine, I’ve sent him texts to tell him we’re out of milk.”

“So, basically, you’re roommates.”

“Roommates who sleep in the same bed at different times, who are never home at the same time and who barely talk to each other except to fight about the price of electricity.” Kurt’s right hand attached itself to his left, fingers twisting the ring there. “I haven’t seen my fiancé in three weeks and it isn’t because one of us has left the country. I think. He could be in China for all I know.”

“You want to break up?” Polly asked, taking Kurt’s hand and squeezing it.

“No,” Kurt said sadly. “I want Blaine. I want to get married and live happily ever after. It just… it feels like it’s just a title. Officially, we’re engaged, officially, we’re living together, but in reality? I don’t know.”

“You have to talk to him, Kurt,” Polly said.

“How? I haven’t mastered telepathy yet.” He gave a little smile at his own joke, but it faded just as quickly. “It just… it feels like we’re in too deep.”

“You’ll figure it out. You have to.” Polly kissed Kurt on the cheek and ran back out to the counter to serve the line of justifiably impatient customers. Kurt closed his eyes tight again. Saturdays into Sundays were the worst days. He worked twenty-six straight hours, coffee shop into all-night burgers into coffee shop again. If he was lucky and he worked hard enough, he might be able to leave a few hours early and get home to overlap with Blaine. Even then, Blaine was working a night shift. He’d probably want to sleep or at least rest beforehand, not spend his precious downtime having a deep and meaningful conversation about their sleep deprived shell of a relationship with a sleep deprived shell of a Kurt. Maybe they could at least schedule their vacation days like they’d been planning to for weeks. Maybe they could sit together and watch TV and pretend everything was okay. Maybe they could just sleep and remember how it felt to have someone on the other side of the bed.

When Kurt stood up from the sofa to go back to work, he immediately fell back down again. He remembered falling, he remembered waking up on the floor and his the duty manager had called him a cab and sent him home to rest with instructions not to return for his late shift under any circumstances. Kurt was grateful that Jerry, the manager, was a decent human being - if he’d passed out at his fast food job, his boss would’ve left him there for people to step over. He felt awful for letting the company pay for the taxi, but he could hardly afford it and there was no way he could walk the eight blocks home.

He slept for an hour, maybe two, and was sitting on the sofa in the dark, staring at the walls, when Blaine came home.

"You’re not at work," Blaine said, hanging up his bag and peeling off his coat.

"I got sent home," Kurt said. "I passed out in the break room."

"Are you okay?" Blaine said, dropping his coat on the floor and rushing to Kurt’s side. "Are you sick?"

"Just tired." Kurt rubbed his eyes and pulled his over-sized sweater tight around him. "I tried to sleep but I didn’t get much. I’ll try more later. Take a sleeping pill maybe."

"Working twenty-six straight hours is crazy, Kurt, it’s killing you," Blaine said, rubbing Kurt’s back. He pressed a kiss against Kurt’s temple and Kurt sighed.

"The whole thing is killing me," Kurt admitted. "And I have a feeling it’s killing you too."

Blaine pulled back, settling into the opposite corner of the sofa. “It’s only for a while. Until we get some money saved.”

"We can barely save ten dollars a month between us, Blaine. And for what? To not see each other for three weeks straight? To only get time together when one of us passes out from sheer exhaustion? This isn’t a life."

Blaine sighed heavily, running his hands through his hair. Curls were springing loose and twisting around his fingers, catching in his fingernails and snagging. He looked wrecked. Kurt felt wrecked. They were wrecked beyond comprehension and they just sat there, silently, staring at the sofa cushions in silence and darkness, because the cable was cut off a month ago and turning the lights on cost money they didn’t have. They had been blessed with a long, hot summer which was only just starting to trail out into a late fall. The windows were single glazed and drafty and Kurt was terrified of what would happen when winter came. Turning the heat on was too expensive.

"I got paid a little extra this month," Blaine said eventually. "For all the overtime I did. I caught us up on the rent."

"How much extra?"

"Enough to get the landlord off our backs. It cleaned me out. I’m going to have to do more hours again this month."

"You have to sleep."

Blaine pulled his knees to his chest, hugging them tight like a little boy. “I’ll find time.”

"Time doesn’t magically appear."

"I’ll find time," Blaine insisted. "You’ll find time. We’ll find time because we have to. We’ll find money because we have to. We’ll get out of this because we have to."

"Will we, though?" Kurt asked.

"Yes!" Blaine said, standing up and throwing his hands down by his sides.

Kurt felt too weak for an argument, but it seemed that one was going to happen anyway. He curled in on himself tighter and spoke quietly. He refused to shout, he refused to rise to it. “I want to believe that, Blaine, I just…”

"We’ll do it! We’ll find a way!” Blaine’s face fell and he sighed. “There… there has to be a way. It can’t be like this forever, right?"

"I think we have to tell-"

"No."

"Blaine," Kurt sighed. "You don’t know what I was going to say."

"You were going to say we have to tell our parents."

"We do."

"No," Blaine said. "We don’t."

"I’m sick of lying to my dad, Blaine!" Kurt said, fighting the urge to yell. "I’m hate lying to him! I hate telling him that everything’s okay, that we’re doing great, that we’re happy and healthy and rested and enjoying our lives as graduates when the complete opposite is happening!"

"They’ll only give us money," Blaine shouted. "They’ll take pity on us and give us money and we’ll never be self-sufficient. I’ve relied on my parents’ money for too long. They’ve paid for me my whole life, they paid for Dalton like it was pocket money and I had to beg them to let me take out loans like a normal goddamn college student. I’m not going back to them now!”

"I want to be self-sufficient!” Kurt shouted, all resistance gone in the face of Blaine’s obstinacy. “But it’s not happening, is it?"

"I have to go," Blaine said, grabbing his bag again.

"You have to sleep!"

"I’ll see you in another three weeks!"

Blaine slammed the door behind him and Kurt fell back onto the sofa, tucking himself into the smallest ball he could manage. He didn’t want to tell his dad he wasn’t doing as well as he’d expected, but at least he knew that Burt would accept it. He knew Blaine’s parents would be disappointed if they knew, angry even. They’d been pushing him into Ivy League schools and sensible, money making professions and grad schools and willing to pay for it all and Blaine hadn’t wanted any of it, he’d wanted to be a performer. Telling them how terribly it had gone would lead to nothing but patronizing ‘we told you so’ lectures and handouts that Blaine was too proud to take. Kurt was proud too, but he wouldn’t be too proud to take money he needed from rich people who wouldn’t even notice it was gone.

 

“And he just stormed out?” Polly sipped her hot chocolate across the table from Kurt, listening intently.

“Yeah. He got mad and slammed the door and - I get it, I do. His parents paid his private school tuition and two years of his college tuition. He just wants to make it on his own; he doesn’t want to keep running to mommy and daddy every time he needs money. But… he has the option. I don’t have that.”

“I thought your dad owned a business?”

“He does, and it does well. People always need their cars fixed. And he earned a lot in Congress, but there were some debts to pay off, mortgage, credit cards, the usual… my family is hardly poor, I’m not saying that, but they’re not rich like Blaine’s family. They work hard for the money they have.”

Kurt sighed and swirled the last of his latte around in the bottom of the mug. He knew he could talk to his dad and he knew that he’d probably help him out, but even then, he’d only be able to manage a couple of hundred dollars at most and that wouldn’t even scratch the surface. There was no way that Blaine’s parents would let their son continue to live like he was living if they knew about it and they more than had the means to change it.

The starving artist lifestyle had seemed attractive at first, romantic, like RENT without the terminal illness. The first few weeks, they sang duets and danced around their empty apartment together and even tried to light a fire in an old oil drum, but that had set the smoke alarm off and made everyone in the building mad at them. Then the money ran out and the food ran out and suddenly the starving artist lifestyle wasn’t attractive or romantic, but real and stressful and exhausting. The last three auditions Kurt had been on, he messed up simple dance steps and his voice cracked on easy notes. There was suffering for your art and there was letting your art suffer.

“I don’t know what to do,” Kurt finally admitted quietly. “This can’t go on but there’s no way out and… sometimes I wonder if it’s even worth it. I mean, Blaine and I are hardly the image of a happy engagement. We’re not planning a wedding; we’re not all over each other. We were going to get married in college. That was the plan. As soon as we were both twenty-one, so we could legally get drunk as hell on our wedding night. I hated changing the plan, but it made sense when we had school to think about. Now, I just wonder if it’s ever going to happen at all.”

Kurt tipped his mug into his mouth and swallowed the last, cold dregs of coffee - it was free after all, a perk of the job, and probably the most calories he’d get in one sitting today. It was mostly unstirred cinnamon syrup and he cringed at the shock of sugar.

"I’ve got to go," Kurt said, standing up. "Since Jerry won’t let me work such long hours anymore, I’ve been trying to get home when Blaine’s meant to be home more often."

"Is it working?" Polly asked.

"Nope. The schedule says he should be home but no sign. Either he’s working a lot of extra hours or he’s avoiding me."

"Let’s hope it’s the first one, sweetie," Polly said, standing up and kissing Kurt on the cheek. "I better get back to work anyway. See you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Kurt smiled. "I’m in at eight."

"Nine," Polly said. "Get a cup of the lemon and ginger tea ready for me when I arrive, yeah?"

"I’ll see what I can do," Kurt smirked, hugging Polly before leaving the coffee shop, tugging his coat tight around him.

 

It was starting to get dark, just hints of orange and pink beginning to tint the sky between the tall buildings. Kurt loved sunsets in the city, when night gradually wrapped the insanity up in a dark blanket, when all the lights started to come on and the streets filled with people in suits desperately trying to get home to their loved ones. He hated the walk back to the apartment. It was three blocks of normal, everyday Manhattan, followed by five blocks of backstreets and darkened alleyways, stinking of stale urine and the constant threat of a stabbing. He made the eighteen-floor climb with aching thighs and burning lungs and he wished he could’ve been more surprised to find the apartment still, silent and empty. It was exactly how he’d left it. Blaine hadn’t been home in eighteen hours, easily. There were no shoes left in the middle of the floor, no unwashed pans in the sink. Kurt had checked his phone over and over but there had been no messages. If there was no sign of him after a nap, then Kurt would let himself worry. Only then would he call. After he slept, because he was pretty sure Jerry was serious about the tracking device he’d mentioned while he had been lecturing Kurt about getting more rest.

Kurt made the same dark, lonely trip up to the same dark, lonely apartment for two weeks. There was no word from Blaine, besides a blunt reply of ‘I’m fine’ when Kurt cracked and sent a message to check he was still alive. Kurt wasn’t cut out for living alone. He needed warmth and touch and company, conversations and someone to come home to. He even missed fighting. The silence was worse. It deafened him sometimes, ringing through the apartment every night, bouncing off the walls until it was louder than the traffic outside, louder than the sketchy nightclub at the end of the block, louder than Kurt’s thoughts. He barely slept, even though he was having his work hours forcibly cut from every angle by bosses who would rather be understaffed by their own choice than face the insurance complications of an employee passing out into a very expensive coffee machine or face first into a vat of boiling oil. He felt like he should appreciate their concern, however corporately driven it was, but it just made the time he was lonely longer. He spent time, too much time, browsing discount airline websites and wondering where he could afford to go, before concluding that he couldn’t afford to go anywhere. He couldn’t even afford a bus through the city. He walked in the park, through the streets, even made friends with a talented homeless guitarist who shared half of whatever food he had been given when Kurt stopped by. He made homelessness look as poetic and romantic as poverty had once seemed.

Empty had never been a word Kurt had wanted to attach to himself. He spent his life filling things, filling spaces, creating. He had decorated bedrooms and basements, planned and executed weddings, found a way to turn whatever remained in the cupboards at the end of the month into a meal. He filled choir rooms and classrooms and auditoriums with his voice. He filled lofts with thrift store trinkets and flea market finds. He filled his life with people he loved and trusted and cared for. He didn’t ever want emptiness. Yet empty was the only thing he felt. Empty was the only thing that surrounded him, from his schedule to his apartment to his bed. He would take off his engagement ring, stare at his empty finger and wonder if it could be his way out - pawn it or sell it or melt it for cash and just go. But then he felt a dreadful pang of guilt, quickly replaced it and stared at his empty phone screen, hoping that Blaine would call.

Kurt was finishing his empty trek to the eighteenth floor when he noticed the apartment door cracked open. He ran the last few steps in a panic – a burglary was the last thing he needed - but when he reached the apartment, everything looked fine. As Kurt caught his breath in the doorway, he could hear Blaine inside. He was talking, apparently on the phone, and Kurt listened hard to hear what he was saying.

"You’re sure there’s space for me? I can find somewhere else, a hotel or- okay, fine. It leaves at ten tonight. Yeah. No, I- I know I can’t just leave, Coop, I’m going to- I will tell him, okay? I just- He should be home soon, I’m going to- yes, I’m sure. I just really, really need to- It’s fine. I’m coming. I’ll be there tonight. I’ll text you later. Bye, Coop- and Cooper? Thank you.”

He was leaving. Blaine was leaving, it was all planned and he hadn’t said a word. Kurt slammed the door hard to get Blaine’s attention and deliberately stomped inside to find Blaine standing in the doorway of the bedroom, an open suitcase on the bed behind him.

"Kurt, I-"

"I heard,” Kurt spat. “You’re going away."

Blaine sighed, staring at the ground. “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, I- I just can’t live like this anymore.”

"Live like what? Like I’ve been telling you we can’t live for months?"

"I have to leave. I’m going to stay with my brother. There might be an opportunity for me there, Cooper knows some people. Even if there isn’t, there’s… something. There’s got to be something. More than this."

"So you won’t go running to your parents but you’ll go running to your brother?" Kurt yelled, balling his fists to stop himself from crying. He wasn’t going to give Blaine the pleasure. "And what am I supposed to do now? Live on the streets?"

"The rent is paid for the next month. That’s why I’ve been working so much. I didn’t want to leave you in the lurch, I wanted to give you some time, I-"

"You’re so fucking considerate!" Kurt screamed. "And what comes after that month? My hours have been cut back because I’m so exhausted that I’m a goddamn liability to have around, I’m practically on the brink of being fired and even if I wasn’t I still can’t afford this place! Or any place!"

"Kurt-" Blaine said, the same way he’d always said it when Kurt was upset.

"Stop it!" Kurt shouted, tears falling without his consent. He felt his knees buckle under him and he fell backwards to lean against the back of the sofa, talking quietly between sobs. "Stop it. You don’t get to say my name like that. Not anymore. Just- just go, just leave. Have a great time in LA. I’ll… figure something out, or I’ll starve to death, either way.”

“Don’t be like that, K-” He stopped himself saying it. “Don’t be like that.”

"Go. Your flight’s at ten, right? You’d better get to the airport, what with traffic and the check in deadline and… just go."

Blaine nodded and ducked back into the bedroom, throwing the last few things into his case and closing it up. Kurt stared at the ground, breathing deeply and trying desperately not to break down completely until Blaine was gone. When Blaine emerged, he paused.

"I’m sorry," he said, and Kurt nodded. Kurt pulled the ring off his finger and held it out towards Blaine, not looking up.

"Take it."

"It’s yours, Kurt." Blaine stepped forward and took the ring, placing it back in the palm of Kurt’s hand and closing his fingers around it one by one. "It’s yours. Do what you want with it. Keep it."

Kurt listened as Blaine walked away from him, footsteps and suitcase wheels grinding towards the door. He listened as Blaine stopped, whispered an apology one more time. He listened as Blaine’s keys jangled against the end table by the door as he left them behind. He listened as the door clicked shut and the footsteps and the suitcase wheels faded away along the hall until it was silent and Kurt was on the floor, hunched behind the sofa, sobbing so hard his stomach hurt.

It was over. Just like that, Blaine was gone. The end had felt inevitable, it felt closer every day they spent apart and every time they fought over stupid things and every time the bills weren’t paid and the rent was late. It had seemed impossible that they could continue, impossible that they’d ever get out, ever get married, ever be happy again. Kurt wasn’t sure why it felt like such a shock, such a betrayal. Blaine hadn’t cheated this time. He hadn’t even really lied. He found a way to get out of a terrible situation. It was self-preservation, and it meant leaving Kurt behind to figure out what he was supposed to do next.

The apartment felt desolate. Kurt cried until it was dark out, not moving from his spot behind the sofa. There was only one way out Kurt could think of. He breathed deeply until he stopped crying, wiped his cold, damp cheeks with his sleeve and pulled out his cellphone from his pocket. The voice on the other end sounded like freedom.

“Kurt? It’s late. What’s going on?”

“Dad?” Kurt said, his voice small and wet. “Can I come home?”


	2. One

Kurt let the door slam behind him. He stomped into the living room, falling face-first onto the sofa and groaning loudly.

“Long day?” Burt called from the kitchen, and Kurt didn’t appreciate the almost amused tone of his voice. He gathered himself up and shuffled to the kitchen, settling down at the table and resting his head on his folded arms. Burt slid a cup of coffee towards him, and he nodded in thanks. He sat up to take a long sip, and closed his eyes at the welcome caffeine hit.

“Long day,” Kurt said eventually, words muffled by the mug immediately back between his lips. He took another sip, and swallowed hard. “Longer than usual.”

“You’re home same time as usual,” Burt said, peering into the refrigerator. “You want takeout tonight? We needed to go grocery shopping a week ago.”

“Felt longer,” Kurt sighed. “Do what you like for dinner; Mercedes is going to be here soon to try to convince me I should go to this thing tonight.”

“You should go to this thing tonight,” Burt said. “And you should also eat first, because you’re a lightweight at the best of times.”

“I don’t know,” Kurt said. “I’m tired, I’ve had a long week, what with work and school and-”

“And the fact that you’re avoiding Blaine.”

“Can you blame me? It’s been two years, he’s been in Los Angeles living the dream and I’m back where I started.”

“No, I can’t blame you,” Burt sighed, sitting down opposite Kurt. “But I do know that you’ll regret not going. It’s not like he’s going to be the only person there.”

“I know,” Kurt groaned. “It’s just… it feels like he’s got everything he ever wanted out of leaving me, and I’m… well, I’m not exactly living the life I planned, am I?”

“Plans don’t always work out,” Burt said. “You know that well enough.”

“I’ve got work to do,” Kurt said, standing up. “Chinese food would be great.”

“Done,” Burt smiled. “I’ll send Mercedes up when she arrives.”

Kurt sat at the desk and closed his eyes, hoping that the stack of work he had to do would disappear by the time he opened them. When they hadn’t magically vanished, set reluctantly about organizing piles in the hope that it would make it seem like less. Papers to grade for Monday first and second period. Thursday third period and Friday fifth period homework. Tuesday second and fourth period vocabulary tests. His own homework.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t living the dream. It was juggling the school where he was supposedly taught to be a teacher with the school where he already kind of was one.  
It was accidental. After leaving New York, Kurt had needed something to do with his life, something new, something other than performing. He thought he’d given up on that particular dream. One of his many of jobs in New York had been tutoring high school kids in French and he’d been good at it, so it was decided. If he wasn’t going to be a performer, he would be a French teacher. The job at McKinley was originally as an assistant to the real, completely useless teacher- a couple of afternoons a week sitting on the sidelines to observe and grading a few tests here and there. It had quickly grown to full-on teaching as many classes as he could manage, and a guaranteed job there when he graduated in a few months time. And he liked it, he really did. Attendance in the classes shot up once he started to use his performance experience as a teaching tool instead of just lecturing and grades went up too. He was doing something useful with his life. It wasn’t what he’d dreamed of as a kid but he was happy.

Mostly, he was happy. Friday night paperwork and the impending New Directions reunion he would be forced to attend and there display his failure of a life in front of his presumably successful ex-fiancé, was making him want to curl into a ball and hide forever.

For two years, Kurt had enjoyed zero contact with Blaine. Burt had dealt with contacting him about the belongings he’d left behind, and the storage container he could find them in if he was so inclined. Kurt had been busy getting over him, busy with grad school and carving out a career that he hadn’t known he wanted until he had it. As far as Kurt knew, Blaine was still living in Los Angeles with Cooper, still living his dream. As far as he had been concerned, Blaine didn’t exist. Until this stupid reunion.

 

"I don’t want to go," Kurt whined, spread-eagled on his bed, thumping his fists against the mattress like a stubborn teenager and screwing up his face. Mercedes sighed heavily, standing over him and put her hands on her hips.

"Give me one good reason."

"He’ll be there."

"Not good enough," Mercedes declared, and grabbed Kurt by the hand and yanking him upright. "You’re coming with me. We’ll avoid him. Stay on the opposite side of the room, talk to other people, whatever it takes. And if it really does get too much for you, then I promise we will leave and I will buy the cheesecake. Just give me the signal and we’re out of there. Deal?"

"Fine," Kurt grumbled. "But I want the biggest cheesecake they have. With extra strawberries."

"It’ll be fun," Mercedes insisted. "Make yourself look fabulous. Show him what he walked out on. I’ll be back at eight to pick you up, be ready."

"Okay."

Mercedes took Kurt’s cheeks in her hands and kissed his forehead pointedly, leaving a lipstick stain between his eyebrows, and left his bedroom humming victoriously to herself. Kurt fell backwards into the pillows and groaned loudly. It would be nice to see some of the people he hadn’t seen for a while- Mike and Tina, Artie, Puck- just not Blaine. He was going to be there, Kurt had checked and double-checked, and the thought of seeing him again made Kurt’s head feel hot and spiky.

He had to take a few deep breaths before opening his closet to pick out something to wear. It was going to be okay, he told himself. He had a getaway driver who would buy him cheesecake. Nothing could go wrong.

 

Kurt hated all his clothes. Nothing looked good anymore. Nothing looked good enough, anyway. Not good enough to wear in the same room as Blaine, not good enough to say ‘hey, look what you walked away from.’ He threw the eighth pair of shoes he’d tried in frustration - trying on shoes although he was still only wearing an undershirt and pajama pants. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration and moved to pick up the shoes, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Kurt? You okay up here?”

“Dad…”

“Only I heard a bang and I thought something fell or you fell or… You’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Kurt sighed. “Just can’t decide on an outfit for tonight.”

“How about your blue jeans, the bright blue ones, with that red button-down you wore at Christmas and the white shoes.”

Kurt laughed quietly, sitting on the bed. “When did you become so interested in my wardrobe?”

“It was inevitable at some point, right?” Burt grinned. “Red shirt, blue jeans, white shoes. I’m telling you.”

“What is it, the fourth of July? I can’t dress like a damn flag.”

Burt laughed and shook his head. “Well, I tried. Mercedes is coming at eight, right?”

“Yup,” Kurt sighed. “Okay, you know what? Red shirt, black jeans, black shoes. Final decision.”

Kurt’s final decision changed another six times before Kurt went back to it - simple, classy, plus his ass looked damn good in his black jeans and the red shirt was his favorite. He was checking himself out in the mirror when he remembered the ring. He wore it on his right hand now, just as an accessory, incredibly useful for fending off gross guys hitting on him on the rare occasion he went out to a bar. But it was still an engagement ring - the engagement ring that Blaine had given him, the engagement ring that he wore on his left hand for four years. He took it off, threaded it onto a thin gold chain from his dresser and closed the clasp around his neck, tucking the ring under his shirt. He still had it this way, but nowhere Blaine would see it and think Kurt was still hung up on him. Kurt gave his hair a final tease, checked that he had his phone and keys and finally ran outside, where Mercedes had been sounding her horn for twenty minutes.

“You took your time,” Mercedes said as Kurt got into the car. He fumbled with his seatbelt for a moment before finally clicking it into place.

“You should’ve just waited inside.”

“But then you would’ve dragged me upstairs to help you make some important fashion decision and it would’ve taken even longer. You’re not wearing your ring.”

“Nope,” Kurt said.

“I’ve not seen you without it for years. I thought your finger would fall off if you took it off.”

“Mercedes…” Kurt rolled his eyes. “Whether or not it is now, it was an engagement ring and wearing that engagement ring to a function my estranged ex-fiancé will also be attending seems insensitive, don’t you think?”

“Screw insensitive. He walked out on you when the going got tough, remember?”

“Still,” Kurt said. “It’s bad enough you’re forcing me to go to this thing. I don’t want to make it worse than already will be.”

“Fine,” Mercedes said. “It’s going to be okay, you know? You’re going to be okay.”

“I know, it’s just…” Kurt sighed, and raised his hands to run them through his hair, stopping when he remembered the effort he’d put into styling. “It’s been a long time. We were engaged and then… we weren’t. The first time we broke up, we barely managed two months without seeing each other. When he left, I lost my fiancé and my apartment and my New York dream and my favorite tub of hair wax and my second favorite shirt. But I lost my best friend too and that was the worst part of it. And it’s just going to be hard to see him again.”

“I’m still good for the cheesecake,” Mercedes said as she reached across the center console to squeeze Kurt’s hand, sharing a smile with him before starting the engine. Kurt could feel his heart racing and his stomach twisting into knots, making him regret the lo mein he had eaten. He just stared straight ahead and breathed deeply.

It was going to be okay.


	3. Two

The basement of Rachel’s dads’ house was filling up when Kurt and Mercedes arrived. It was a classic party location for them and ideal with the majority of the group in town for the reunion they’d been planning for months. Rachel immediately bounced over to greet them at the bottom of the stairs, grinning and welcoming them. It was so very different from the first time they’d had a party in this basement - there were no drink tokens, no weird green dress that Kurt never quite understood, no raiding the liquor cabinet. All the alcohol was legal and above board, which felt strange in this particular group and made Kurt feel suddenly ancient. The room was decorated with strings of colored lights and it looked about as pretty as a gray, concrete-walled basement could get. The stage still stood in one corner, with microphones ready for the inevitable drunken performances. Mercedes led Kurt in to sit down on the sofa beside Santana and Puck, grabbing drinks from a table on the way. Kurt paid no attention to the conversation; his ears were full of loud music and he kept looking around to search for Blaine.

"Yo, Hummel!" Santana shouted right into Kurt’s ear, shocking him back into focus. "He’s not here yet. Calm your tits.”

"I’m calm," Kurt said, sipping his beer in an attempt to seem nonchalant, and attempting not to cringe when he remembered how much he hated beer. "Why do I care if he’s here or not? I don’t care."

"Of course," Mercedes laughed, affectionately bumping her shoulder against Kurt’s. "Why would you care?"

The conversation continued, Mercedes and Puck trading stories and Santana interjecting at every turn. Kurt’s gaze kept flicking back to the staircase. He wasn’t sure if he hoped Blaine would be there or if he hoped the opposite, but whatever he hoped, he wanted to know his at-the-party status. His stomach felt tingly and at the same time, like something was gnawing at the lining of his gut but he thought that it was at least fifty-fifty between beer and Blaine nerves. He knew nothing about Blaine now. He’d made everyone who he knew had stayed in contact with both of them not tell him anything unless it directly affected his life, like the time Blaine had an extra role in a movie Kurt had wanted to see and the fact that he was going to be coming back for the reunion. He could have a boyfriend, he could be married with kids, he could have lost an arm or gained a hundred pounds. Kurt had no idea how Blaine of two years ago, Blaine who was distant and avoidant and busy and beautiful and engaged to Kurt, related to Blaine of now, Blaine of Los Angeles, Blaine who was probably still beautiful and busy and probably more tan than he used to be and hopefully wore less hair gel but Kurt wasn’t counting on that. He could be the same, just a little older. He could be completely different, entirely unrecognizable, a whole new person without the burden of a teenage engagement. The more Kurt turned it over in his head, the more he felt like he was going to have a panic attack. And then - Blaine.

He was still beautiful. Of course he was. He was graceful and gorgeous and compact and wearing clothes tight enough to show that he had been working out. His hair was slightly less gelled, showing its curl a little more than it had before, more like it had been when they first met, and he definitely looked more tan but otherwise the same. Kurt immediately looked away from him and tried to focus on the conversation - he knew that Blaine was here and now he could concentrate on something other than when he was going to arrive. Except he kept looking back to him - Blaine hugging Rachel in greeting, Blaine grabbing a beer from the ice box, Blaine catching up with Mike excitedly and high-fiving Sam, who had been out on a trip to LA last month for reasons no one told Kurt and therefore Kurt knew it was to visit with Blaine. Blaine drinking beer in tiny sips like he always used to do. Blaine hugging Tina, commenting on her new hairstyle, patting her just-showing baby bump as Mike smiled proudly. Blaine talking to everyone in the room except the people who sat on the couch with Kurt and it was obvious that he was avoiding Kurt as much as Kurt was avoiding him. Kurt couldn’t decide if he was thankful for that or pissed off about it. Instead, he just took a large gulp of beer and forced himself to listen to whatever Santana had just started ranting about.

The first time Kurt had been this kind of drunk was in the loft just after Santana had moved in. He’d expressed his amazement that being drunk could feel good, kind of fizzy and floaty and not at all like he was about to throw up. Santana had described it as being drunk enough to make bad decisions, and sober enough to remember them. He’d drunk enough that he knew he wanted to talk to Blaine. But Blaine kept moving away. Every time Kurt started strategically talking to someone closer to Blaine, Blaine would move on five seconds later. It kept happening, and Kurt was starting to feel dizzy from the round and round and round of it all. He had to run out to the bathroom very quickly in a bout of nausea, which didn’t last long enough for him to actually puke but long enough to make his head spin and his stomach growl. He wished he had been sick, but instead he drank a few mouthfuls of water from the tap, splashed some on his flushed cheeks in the bathroom mirror and made his way outside to continue the ridiculous, stupid game he was apparently playing with Blaine.

"Hi."

And that was Blaine. In the empty hallway outside the bathroom. Ostensibly, but not necessarily, waiting for Kurt. Kurt blinked hard, as if to check that he wasn’t just imagining things.

"Sorry. I was kind of waiting for you."

"You were?" Kurt choked around the giant lump that had suddenly grown in his throat.

"I… I wanted to talk to you but not in there. Not in front of everyone. It’s better here, more… private."

"You wanna..?" Kurt said, gesturing vaguely into the bathroom behind him. Blaine nodded, and they both stepped inside, locking the door behind them.

"This is private," Blaine said, looking around before sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Kurt sat down on the closed toilet lid, hugging his arms around his waist, and they were silent for a long moment.

"I’m-" they both started together, before laughing nervously.

"You first," Kurt said.

"I’m sorry. About everything that happened. About… leaving like that. I was so far out of line. The line was in India."

"It’s… well, it’s not okay. It’s not… forgivable, I don’t think. I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of drinks."

Blaine laughed, and Kurt’s stomach flipped at hearing that laugh. “I’ve had a lot of drinks too. It’s a party.”

"We’re old enough to buy the alcohol," Kurt said incredulously. "We’ve been old enough for years. I feel old. Decrepit. I’m ancient, I’m falling apart, I’m going to die soon."

"Don’t say that," Blaine said quietly.

"Okay," Kurt agreed. "Not that last part. But the rest of it."

"I wish things had been different," Blaine said. "I wish I hadn’t walked out. I think about it every day."

"Yeah?" Kurt said. "I wish you hadn’t too."

"It was hard. I was stupid. We should’ve… I should’ve…"

"It wasn’t just you," Kurt said. "We were both stupid. We thought we were going to take on the world. We thought we could do it." Kurt sighed, and attempted a weak smile. “I probably would’ve gone, if you hadn’t,” Kurt admitted. “I wouldn’t have done it the same way, but…”

"Naive," Blaine nodded. "We were… naive."

"Naive."

"And stupid. And… young. Doesn’t it feel like we were really, really young?"

"Kids," Kurt agreed.

"But it was only two years ago."

"Two years, a lifetime, who’s counting?" Kurt shrugged.

"Sometimes two years is a lifetime."

"Morbid.”

"No, I mean for like… hamsters. And… mice. And… I don’t know, what else lives for two years?” Blaine stuttered out. “That’s their whole life. All their learning and their growing and their having of babies and their running on little wheels and eating carrots and it’s all packed into two years. So they have to live every second, right? Because we have longer than a hamster and so we do stupid things and regret them forever and… We get more years. We get… eighty, ninety. If we’re lucky."

"You get philosophical when you’re drunk," Kurt giggled.

"And you get giggly."

"Philosopher!"

"Giggler!"

And then they both broke down into giggles, laughing until Blaine fell backwards into the bathtub with a thud against the porcelain.

"Oh god, are you okay?" Kurt said, instantly springing up and reaching out a hand to pull Blaine up with. Blaine was still laughing, crumpled in the tub.

"I think so," he laughed, trying to catch his breath. "That would’ve been a really stupid way to die.” He took Kurt’s hand and let himself be pulled up to standing, ending up right in front of Kurt, close enough that Kurt went cross eyed, but that could’ve been the alcohol. Kurt took in a deep breath, the gnawing creature in his stomach making a return.

"Can we… friends? Can we be friends again?" Blaine said quietly, and Kurt nodded. Blaine leaned forward a little and hugged Kurt, holding tight around his chest like he always used to, like a sad, clinging koala. Kurt breathed deep against Blaine’s hair, and he heard Blaine do the same against his neck. They were drunk and hugging in Rachel Berry’s bathroom and suddenly Kurt didn’t feel old anymore, he felt sixteen again, like the clock had turned back and he was here with the New Directions and Blaine and all he wanted to do was impress this drunken oaf who ended up making out with Rachel of all people. He felt small and vulnerable and his heart ached with how much he loved Blaine, how much he had loved him then and how much he still loved him now, even after a lengthy separation.

"Please don’t kiss Rachel this time," Kurt whispered mostly to himself and Blaine laughed.

"I won’t, I promise."

"Good," Kurt said. "Good."

 

When they returned from the bathroom, Santana immediately sprang up and dragged Kurt to the side of the room by his wrist.

"Okay, what was that about?"

"I don’t know what you mean, Santana."

"Oh, I think you do," she replied. "You and Blaine disappear into the bathroom, lock the door and come out twenty minutes later all smiles? I’m not stupid."

"We talked," Kurt said. "It was good. We discussed some stuff and I think we can be friends again."

"Friends," Santana snorted, swaying a little on the spot. "Do you remember what happened last time you two tried to be friends?"

"That’s beside the point! We can be some sort of friends, I’m sure of it."

"Yeah, great friends. If you two have a twisted definition of friendship that involves sucking each other’s dicks, that’s your business."

"Santana," Kurt hissed. "Blaine and I can be friends. You and I, however, I’m starting to doubt."

"Come on, I’m only teasing," Santana smiled. "Drink?"

"Anything but beer," Kurt said, and Santana nodded and stumbled away to investigate the icebox.

 

It was painfully inevitable. Get a group of old high school friends together, in the same venue they used to have secret underage parties in as kids, get them drunk, and eventually someone was going to regress far enough into their youth to announce a game of spin the bottle. They were all sitting in a circle and Kurt was nervous. But Mike was currently making out with Artie in the middle of the circle, with Tina whooping and laughing hard at the side, and Kurt was starting to think a reenactment of the disastrous Rachel Berry house party of 2011 wouldn’t be the most horrible thing he could witness. It was becoming quite funny, actually, watching various pairs kiss in both strange combinations and former teenage couples. Tina’s spin landed on Rachel. Rachel’s spin landed on Sam. And then, before he knew it, it was Kurt’s turn to spin, and he stared at the bottle until it stopped still and looking up to cheering and whooping around him. Of course. Where else was it going to land but on Blaine? He had cursed it somehow. He’d cursed it by sitting next to Blaine in the circle, by wishing that Rachel’s spin wouldn’t land on Blaine, by just going to the party. Blaine ducked his head shyly.

"We don’t have to,” Blaine said. “If it’s awkward…"

"It’s the rules," Kurt said, taking a deep breath. "Let’s just… okay?"

Blaine nodded and leaned in. It felt natural, the way they came together, slow at first but quickly falling back into it. The familiar way Blaine sucked on Kurt’s bottom lip and grazed his teeth over it the way he always did, the way he knew drove Kurt crazy, the way he knew would make Kurt retaliate by licking along the roof of Blaine’s mouth so it tickled and made him shudder. The way Blaine’s hand instinctively flew to Kurt’s cheek, the way that Kurt’s hands immediately found their home on Blaine’s waist. Kurt could hear the crowd around them but they were muffled, insignificant. He had learned not to think about Blaine, not to miss him, not to miss this, but in one evening, in one kiss, it had all come back. Seeing Blaine had opened the floodgates and now his head was spinning from more than just the booze. Kurt felt giddy with it, and he never wanted to stop kissing Blaine. He didn’t see why he should. They could just kiss until they ran out of energy, until they ran out of oxygen; they could melt together entirely and kiss until they asphyxiated.

The game eventually wound down and people dispersed again, falling back into groups to talk and sing and drink, almost like the adults they were. Kurt had retreated to the sofa alone, and had been quickly joined by Blaine to continue the drinking and the kissing and the definitely-just-friends. They were virtually horizontal when Santana had kicked them off the sofa, and Blaine led Kurt by the hand up the basement stairs and out from the party. He pressed Kurt against the wall, kissing him harder. Just friends, he reminded himself, as he pushed his hips outwards to press against Blaine’s and found him equally hard, straining against his pants, and pushing back against him, with just enough friction to be teasing and unbearable and horribly not enough. Blaine stopped kissing Kurt for a moment to look around - he was flushed and gorgeous, his lips swollen and red and his hair all messy and curled - and Kurt wanted to keep kissing his friend more than anything in that moment.

"Do you remember the way to bedrooms in this place?" Blaine asked, his voice quiet and low.

"Up, I think," Kurt responded. "It’s been a while."

"Okay. Up sounds difficult. In?”

Blaine took Kurt’s hand and led him into the bathroom they had occupied earlier. It was hardly romantic, but it was clean and carpeted and big enough, and they were just friends so who needed romance anyway. Kurt’s hand found its way to Blaine’s cock as they kept kissing against the door and Blaine moaned into Kurt’s mouth at the contact. Kurt dropped to his knees, faintly remembering what Santana had said, but forgetting as soon as he mouthed over the hard bulge briefly before unzipping the fly of Blaine’s pants and sucking hard over the wet patch forming on his gray boxers.

"Kurt," Blaine panted and Kurt took no more prompting. He reached his fingers into Blaine’s waistband and fluidly tugged his pants and underwear down. His cock stood out, hard and proud, red and glistening at the tip. Kurt wrapped his fingers around the shaft and gave it a few strokes, running his thumb across the head to collect and spread pre-come along the length of Blaine’s cock before licking lightly at the slit. Blaine’s groan was loud and his knees were beginning to buckle, so Kurt stood up and guided Blaine down to the bathroom floor. It was much safer, with a lower chance of collapse or eavesdroppers. Kurt knelt beside Blaine and sucked the head of his cock into his mouth, running his tongue all over in swirls, then bobbed his head slowly down to take as much as he could. He could still take most of Blaine, and it felt like coming home. His throat quickly became sore from the effort, so he went back to focusing his mouth and tongue on the head, pumping his hand along the shaft harder and faster until Blaine came with a cry into Kurt’s mouth. Kurt kept stroking lightly until Blaine was soft and sensitive.

Blaine sat up but said nothing, just kissed Kurt deep, tasting himself on his tongue, and flipped their positions before kissing down Kurt’s neck, licking lightly at his collarbones. One hand worked Kurt’s pants open to free his cock and the other unbuttoned Kurt’s shirt, pushing up the undershirt so he could kiss down Kurt’s chest, swirl his tongue around each nipple and finish with a hard suck on each. He kissed softly down Kurt’s belly and lower, along the length of his cock. He placed a light kiss on the very tip before immediately sucking him, hard and rhythmic, and as Kurt came everything turned bright for a moment.

"So," Kurt said, breaking the silence. They were dressed again, and the aftermath hung heavy in the air. "That… happened."

"That was… amazing," Blaine admitted. "It was always amazing with you."

"We agreed to be friends an hour ago," Kurt said, frowning.

"We’re terrible at being friends," Blaine laughed.

"Then maybe we just shouldn’t try," Kurt said, fastening the top two buttons of his shirt. "I… I have to go, I-"

Kurt ran out of the bathroom, his hair a mess and his cheeks reddened, and back into the party, grabbing Mercedes’ arm.

"Can we- cheesecake?"

Mercedes nodded and said her goodbyes quickly as Kurt pulled her out of the room, up the stairs and out of the house into the car.

"Wait - can you drive?" Kurt said suddenly, as Mercedes started the engine.

"I only drank diet Coke," she said. "What sort of a getaway driver would I be if I was getting drunk in there?"

"I love you, Mercedes," Kurt said, smiling briefly and squeezing her hand. He stared straight ahead and didn’t speak again until they pulled into an all night diner parking lot.

Mercedes guided Kurt into a booth and ordered a large cheesecake for Kurt and a piece of pie for herself. Once Kurt had taken a bite, Mercedes spoke.

"Okay, what happened?"

"I- oh god, Mercedes, are we really that bad at being friends? Is it really impossible?"

"Kurt."

"We talked. We said we’d be friends. And that was great for an hour, then that stupid game and- what group of adults plays spin the bottle? And the stupid bottle landed on him, of course it did, and-"

"You didn’t seem to hate the kiss, Kurt."

"I didn’t. That’s the stupid thing. I loved it. I loved kissing him, it felt like old times, like it used to. And then we went back into the bathroom and-" Kurt paused to take another bite of cheesecake. "And we had sex and he was so happy afterwards and I just freaked out and I ran away and now we’re here."

"You had sex?" Mercedes said.

"Blowjobs on the bathroom floor," Kurt groaned.

"And that freaked you out?"

"Yes! Because apparently we can’t last five minutes being just friends.”

"You’re just- you were drunk and sometimes things happen when you’re drunk that wouldn’t otherwise,” Mercedes said. “Like hooking up with your ex in Rachel Berry’s bathroom. Classy location, by the way."

"Shut up," Kurt said through a mouthful. "Don’t think I’ve forgotten that time you and Sam did it in the Lima Bean’s disabled restroom, Mercedes Jones."

"You want to be with him?" Mercedes said, waving off the comment. "You want to get back with him?"

"No,” Kurt said stubbornly. “And even if I did, how could I? He lives in California now. There’s been two thousand miles between us for the past two years, zero communication, and we’re in the same room for a couple of hours and we have sex? It’ll be better once the distance is back and we can go back to how it was."

"You mean, you being miserable and pretending you don’t still love him and refusing to even consider dating anyone and wearing his ring even though you’ve not been engaged for two years?"

"Shut up and eat your pie," Kurt mumbled.

Mercedes rolled her eyes and forked a mouthful of pie. Every time Kurt looked up he caught her eye, a little amused smirk on her face, and he responded with a grunt and a scowl. The distance would be back soon. Everything would be normal again. He could forget about Blaine, forget about the past, forget about ever drinking again because that was clearly a terrible idea for him. It hurt less when there was nothing. He could ignore everything, he could study and teach and everything would be good again. One day he’d find someone, settle down, have the marriage and the kids and the dog and the house he had wanted with Blaine. One day the husband he imagined would stop having Blaine’s face, his imaginary kids would stop having Blaine’s dark curls and dark eyes, his dog would stop being the Irish Setter Blaine had always wanted to own. He felt sick with guilt and confusion and love and beer and cheesecake, swirling around his stomach and combining to make Kurt want to heave.


	4. Three

The morning after the reunion, the group gathered again for a hangover breakfast, piling into the Lima Bean in various states and various shades of green. Everyone shared stories of what they could remember to help the others plug the gaps in their own memories over strong coffees and bacon sandwiches. Tina and Mercedes, the only people who hadn’t been drinking, did the majority of the memory-plugging, laughing at the groans they elicited from their newly-enlightened friends. Kurt stayed at the other end of the table from Blaine, stared into his coffee cup and poked at some stray sugar grains on the table. He didn’t want to face it yet; he didn’t want to look at Blaine and try to figure out what he wanted, how he felt, and what Blaine wanted and how Blaine felt. Not that it mattered, really, because Blaine didn’t live there anymore. Kurt just listened to stories and laughter and wished he’d had another drink so he might not remember everything in quite such a vivid clarity. Drunk enough to make bad decisions and sober enough to remember them, indeed. It was crisp and sharp and real in his head, the whole night from start to strawberry-topped finish. Besides, his coffee was very interesting to stare at. The foam on top was floating around, making different shapes with each sip, and it was a truly fascinating spectacle that Kurt had never truly observed. At least, that’s what he told himself as the foam drifted briefly into a heart shape, before floating back out to the sides again. It seemed that even beverages were conspiring against him now.

"You’re ignoring me," Kurt heard Blaine say, sliding into the chair beside him which, the last time Kurt checked, had been occupied by Mercedes. He looked up and saw almost the entire party in line at the counter, with just Sam and Mike engaged in a very intense-looking debate at the other end of the long table.

"Well done," Kurt said. "You’re observant."

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No, you-"

"Because we spend the night kissing, we have sex in a bathroom, then you run out and the next day you won’t talk to me."

"It’s nothing you did," Kurt said softly. "It’s- last night was a lot and looking at you isn’t helping and talking to you isn’t helping and… it’s just a lot."

"Okay," Blaine said, his eyes softening. "I’ll go back to my seat and let you… process or whatever you need to do. But, Kurt?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we talk, though? Alone, before I have to leave. Get coffee or something?"

"Uh… yeah. Yeah, of course," Kurt said, and Blaine nodded and retreated to his seat beside Sam.

 

Blaine had a week in Lima after the party and after a few text messages, Kurt agreed to meet him in a very public, neutral coffee shop to talk. Blaine bought the coffees and they settled at a table by a wide window facing out onto a busy street.

"You wanted to talk?" Kurt said.

"I wanted to check in without everyone else there. Make sure you’re okay. Really okay, not the Kurt Hummel patented pretending-to-be-okay thing, because I can see right through that. Is everything… life and everything…"

"I’m okay," Kurt nodded. "I’ve been… busy, working, helping my dad out."

"Working?"

“Yeah, uh, it’s nothing really, nothing important,” Kurt lied. “But I might have enough saved to move out and find my own place soon.”

“And… there’s no one?”

"There’s no one. This is Lima, Blaine, things haven’t changed that much since we were kids,” Kurt said. “What about you? How’s LA?”

“It’s great,” Blaine said, trying to smile. Kurt raised an eyebrow at his grimace, and Blaine sighed heavily. “It’s… honestly, I kind of hate it. I still only really know Cooper there, so I end up around models and actors a lot and… it sounds better than it is, trust me. It’s kind of image obsessed and everyone’s so beautiful and it’s hot. It’s always hot. It’s never cold, it’s just constantly sweltering. And… I mean, I haven’t had a lot of work and Cooper is driving me insane. He’s awful to live with, I’d forgotten.”

"Yeah?" Kurt laughed. "He can’t be that bad."

"He gets up at four thirty every morning to work out and he sings. And, trust me, until he’s warmed up, that voice is horrific. He leaves clothes everywhere and gets pissed when they haven’t magically been laundered. He dances in the kitchen, which is far too small for dancing, then complains when he knocks stuff onto the floor. He stays up really late most nights watching TV. He’s… he’s a nightmare."

Kurt smiled, taking a long sip of coffee. “Does he still give terrible acting advice?”

"Oh god, before the last three auditions I had, he took it upon himself to coach me in eyebrow acting,” Blaine laughed. “Apparently, your eyebrows are what makes or breaks you as an actor. Cooper Anderson logic, I swear. I miss New York so much."

"I do too," Kurt said quietly."

"Maybe you could go back there one day," Blaine said. “You’re made for New York.”

Kurt smiled. “Maybe.”

"Maybe we’ll both get back there one day," Blaine said.

"Maybe," Kurt replied, meeting Blaine’s gaze. They both took sips in silence, a silence feeling more like the comfortable silences they used to share.

"So, I have a question," Blaine said, after taking a big gulp.

"Yeah?"

"Yup. You’re still wearing the ring."

Kurt took a sharp breath. “That’s not a question.”

"Kurt."

"I’m just saying."

"You were wearing it on a chain at the party. I saw it when I was undoing your shirt and I wasn’t about to mention it right then because, well, I had other things on my mind, and I was pretty drunk, but I was pretty certain that it was. And now it’s on your hand."

"I keep it on my right hand now. It’s useful, it helps me fend off creeps. And… I don’t know, it’s… comforting."

"Comforting?"

"To remember that… that it happened. There was something more than this. There was a time when I was the happiest man on earth. And that did exist and so it can exist again. I don’t know, it’s stupid, I-"

"It’s not stupid," Blaine said softly. "I just… I didn’t expect you to still have it. I thought you’d sell it or something. It would’ve been the least I deserved after what I did to you."

"It’s a nice ring, I wanted to keep it. It’s gorgeous, it goes with everything. And I… I wanted a reminder of us. Okay?"

Blaine nodded, took a small sip of his coffee and swallowed hard. “I regret leaving you every single day,” he said.

"I regret pushing you away," Kurt replied.

"I regret pushing you away.”

"I regret a lot of what happened in New York,” Blaine said. “But I don’t regret us.”

"I don’t either." Kurt smiled, nodding slightly, as Blaine took another sip. "When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow," Blaine said, his face dropping.

"You’re sad about it?"

He shrugged. “I… I might have understated how much I hate LA.”

"Yeah?"

"Yeah… I can’t stand it. I want out. But I’m still living in Cooper’s place and I haven’t saved a lot and… it’s not practical. See, I’ve grown up, I’m not running away this time."

Kurt breathed a laugh. “But if you hate it that much…”

"There’s nowhere else to go. My parents would take me, I guess, but I don’t want to move back there. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, I just-"

"I know what you mean," Kurt smiled. "It’s hardly an ideal situation for me either, but, no offense, I’d take living with my parents over yours any day."

"Oh god, me too," Blaine said. "Why do you think I spent every day of our summer vacations at your house in high school? Your dad and Carole are so cool, it was so refreshing."

"They aren’t that bad, they’re just-"

"Stuck in their ways? They’re good people, but I don’t want to go back there. You get to live at home and still feel like an adult, right?” Blaine asked, and Kurt nodded. “If I went home, I’d be fifteen again. I miss Ohio sometimes, though.”

"They say it’s the people that make a place," Kurt said. "Maybe you just miss the people."

"Probably," Blaine said. "I don’t think I can live there much longer. But Ohio is out and I can hardly afford New York right now and, well, I’m stuck there. Until I can find a job that pays enough to save and move out."

"New York?"

Blaine just shrugged. “New York, Chicago, anywhere that isn’t permanently hot and enhanced with silicon. I miss snow. Dammit, I even miss rain. Deserts are dull.”

"Possibly an unprecedented sentence," Kurt said, smiling.

"Not to anyone who’s lived in one."

 

With empty coffee cups and the waiters starting to glare at their table, they eventually moved outside to say goodbye. Blaine managed to grab a passing taxi and he stood with the door open, letting the cold air into the car while he said goodbye.

"Stay in touch, okay?" Blaine said. "I really do want to be friends."

"Me too," Kurt nodded. "I will. I have your new email address and your number, there’s no excuse. I’ll call you."

"Looking forward to it," Blaine smiled, leaning forward to hug Kurt and kiss him on the cheek. Blaine smelled the same as ever, mostly. Aftershave mixed with raspberry hair gel (and Kurt couldn’t believe he still used that stuff), like a toddler and an old man at once. He smelled like Blaine, like warmth and safety and comfort and home. Blaine pulled away, leaving Kurt cold without his body heat, got into the taxi, and waved as he drove away.

 

"Hey, kid," Burt called from the living room as Kurt shut the front door and started stripping off his coat and scarf. "How was coffee?"

Kurt walked into the living room and curled up in one corner of the sofa, staring at the game his dad was watching on TV. “Hot, brown, bitter, they haven’t changed it much. I tried the gingerbread syrup again, but I still don’t like it so that was kind of a waste…”

"Kurt."

"It was fine, dad. We talked, we’re going to stay in touch and we’re going to be friends."

Burt hummed acknowledgment from his chair, nodding.

"What?"

"Nothing!" Burt protested.

"You’re making a face," Kurt said.

"Guy just got kicked in the nuts, looks painful, I think he forgot to wear his cup."

"Dad!"

"I’ve seen what happens when you two decide to be just friends. We’ve all seen it. That’s all."

"Past results don’t indicate future performance," Kurt grumbled, and Burt laughed.

"What kind of a line is that?!"

"It’s what I tell the kids at school who don’t want to try because they’ve failed before," Kurt sulked. "It works, like, seventy percent of the time."

"Okay, fine, be friends. I suppose you won’t want the Blaine box under your bed, then."

Kurt gaped at his dad. The Blaine box was supposed to be private - a box containing mementos: the ticket stub from the first movie they went to together, a receipt from the restaurant from their first date, a program from the performance of Rent they saw together, the stick Kurt had used to stir his coffee the day Blaine had said he loved him and a million other tiny things that meant the world. No one else was supposed to see that box.

"How do you know about the box?!"

"If you won’t clean the stains off your own carpet, the person who does it for you finds things."

"I clean the carpet!"

"You wipe it with a barely damp cloth and then you leave it until you’re complaining that you can’t get the dried in coffee stain out,” Burt said. “Then I end up going up there, scrubbing your damn carpet with carpet cleaner, which lives under the sink by the way, and finding your box.”

"I want the box," Kurt said quietly.

"Something happen between you two?” Burt asked, muting the television. “You seemed to go from zero to coffee date pretty quickly."

"…Something happened,” Kurt choked. “I won’t traumatize you with the details.”

"I appreciate that," Burt said.

"And it wasn’t a date. It was talking. Over coffee. Alone, together. He bought the coffees and we shared the biscotti."

"Sounds like a date."

"No, the biscotti thing is just a thing we used to do when we’d go to the Lima Bean together after school, it was… for fun, for the sake of tradition."

"When does he leave?" Burt asked.

"Tomorrow," Kurt said. "Early hours, I think. He’s not too enthusiastic about LA, but he’ll be okay."

"I’m sure he will," Burt said. "I’m sure he will."

Kurt stayed there for the rest of the game, curled up in the corner of the sofa, resisting the urge to pull out a copy of Vogue. He stared at the TV, smiled when his dad cheered, and made a sad face when his dad shouted angrily. He mostly thought of Blaine, and he wished he wasn’t. Two years of pushing and forgetting and not forgetting and working to forget, undone in the simple act of lips on lips and skin on skin and coffee and cologne and alcohol. If he’d stayed at home that night, he would’ve gone to bed at a reasonable hour and not woken up with a hangover from the alcohol and the realization of what he’d done, what they’d both done and why. He wouldn’t have had to have coffee with Blaine, had to see his face look crumpled and sad, he wouldn’t have known that Blaine was still unhappy.

"Kurt?"

Burt threw a pillow at Kurt’s head, snapping him out of his thoughts. It bounced off his temple and landed with a soft thwack on the floor.

"Yeah?"

"I said, do you want a drink? Looks like you need it."

"Uh, sure," Kurt said. "I’ll go and grab some." He untucked himself and stood up, walking to the kitchen feeling a little dazed. He grabbed a beer and a bottle of water from the refrigerator, not missing how empty it was, and walked back into the living room with a bottle opener between his teeth.

"Beer," Kurt said simply, flicking the lid off the brown bottle and handing it to Burt. He nodded in acknowledgment and took a drink.

"You wanna talk about it?" Burt asked as Kurt sat back down.

"About what?"

"About that face you’re wearing."

"What face?"

"The sad pouty face. I know that face. It’s the face you make when someone mentions Blaine."

"I don’t have a sad pouty Blaine face," Kurt huffed, curling back into his corner of the couch. "I just didn’t realize how much I missed him. That’s all."

"Sure you did," Burt said. "You just pretended not to realize."

"Same thing," Kurt said. "But… seeing him. Two years of nothing, and I know I imposed that and it was the right thing to do at the time, but then he just shows up. And he’s the same as ever, and he hates LA so much and- I don’t know.”

Burt nodded. “And you two… at the party…”

"We avoided each other for ages, then we finally talked and decided to try to be friends and then we kissed in spin the bottle because apparently we’re all still teenagers and then-"

"You had sex with him," Burt said, matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," Kurt said, feeling himself blush. "Kind of."

"What’s kind of? Either you did or you didn’t."

"Kind of… meaning it wasn’t… it was… there were… but there wasn’t any… we didn’t…"

"Kurt, you’re babbling,"

Kurt took a long drink and an even longer inward breath.

"Yes, I had sex with him."

Burt nearly spat out his drink, but managed to compose himself.

"If you’d asked me a few years ago if I thought I’d ever hear those words from your mouth, I would’ve laughed so damn hard.”

"You forced it out of me," Kurt sulked.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing!” Burt protested. “Just shows how much you’ve grown up.”

“He saw the ring,” Kurt sighed. “The engagement ring. I tried to hide it but he saw it anyway. I shouldn’t have worn it. I shouldn’t still wear it. It’s an engagement ring, it’s his engagement ring, we’re not engaged anymore.”

Burt was quiet for a moment, sipping on his beer. “You still love him,” he said eventually.

"What if I do?” Kurt said. “It doesn’t matter, he lives thousands of miles away, he was in town for a week.”

“But he wants out, right?” Burt asked, and Kurt nodded. “The way I see it, you got some choices. You can talk to him, continue down this friendship path and ultimately either try to figure something out between you two or else have it be the elephant in the room your whole lives until you’re actually in a room together in which case you’ll just end up together anyway. Or you can resume the incommunicado idiocy. You already have mutual friends who have spent two years not mentioning Blaine to you, but how much longer will they keep it up? Life is short, Kurt. You know that. You know that better than anyone.”

"I know," Kurt said quietly. "I’ll… figure something out. I’m going to bed."

"Okay," Burt said. "Sleep well."

"Night, dad."


	5. Four

Kurt’s bedroom was the same as it had always been. Changing it felt wrong. He’d tried to move the bed once, but he couldn’t sleep and ended up moving it back at three in the morning. The shelves were decorated with trinkets: things of his mothers, antique ornaments, photos from high school. Photos of show choir victories and show choir defeats, of the younger faces of his old friends, of proms and family and brothers.

He kept the photos of Blaine in an album, tucked away in the top corner.

Some nights, he found a residential street in suburban Ohio too quiet to sleep, longing for the endless city noise he was once accustomed to. Some nights, the silence suited him just fine.

This night was the latter and he fell asleep easily.

Kurt had never appreciated an early alarm. He didn’t like being awake before he needed to be. Even more, he didn’t like waking up in the middle of the pitch black night. He tried to rub at his eyes, groaning raggedly, but his arm wasn’t working that way. That never happened.

His brain caught up. His arm was being shaken. That’s why he’d woken up. There were hands on his wrist shaking him and shaking him. Carole was shaking him, and he felt all of his blood rush to his head, his face suddenly prickling.

"What’s happened?" Kurt asked, sitting suddenly bolt upright.

"Your dad," Carole said, her breathing heavy. "He’s been having chest pains. We have to go."

No. Not again.

Kurt went into autopilot. He didn’t remember pulling on the closest clothes he could find, or throwing on mismatched shoes. He didn’t remember Carole’s terrified face. He didn’t remember anything until he was in the back seat of the car, with Carole driving and his dad riding shotgun while insisting that it was probably nothing and it all seemed like a fuss over nothing. He remembered needing to do something with his hands, and he remembered sending Blaine a message:

Blaine. My dad. Heart. Pain. I don’t know what to do please I’m going to the hospital I can’t lose him Blaine I can’t.

And, moments later:

Sorry this is so late I just needed to do something I needed to tell someone and you’re you and sorry.

 

The hospital was cold and white and stale. The coffee from the vending machine was cold and brown and stale, but Kurt wasn’t planning on actually drinking it. It had been a hand warmer, something with heat and comfort to hold, but what little warmth there had been had dissipated long ago and now he was just sitting on a hard chair, staring at an unidentifiable stain on the floor, holding a plastic cup filled with cold brown sludge. Burt had been taken from the emergency room to a cardiac ward, and the waiting room outside was oppressively quiet. Phones rang, pagers bleeped, but there was almost nobody around and no one spoke. It felt uneasy, like something was going to happen any second. It was an anticipatory silence, except whatever the silence was anticipating never happened. It just stayed silent and still and ringing and beeping and nothing happened, nothing moved, nothing changed.

Nothing changed at all except the growing dread in Kurt’s chest and the heavy thumping of his heart. No news. Carole was in there, somewhere behind a door that Kurt hadn’t been permitted to enter. She was better with trauma than Kurt was, anyway. She knew what to say, what to do, how to take care of people. Kurt never knew what to say or what to do and he wasn’t very good at taking care of people. He tried, he had always tried, but he’d never been able to do enough. Other people were always better at it than he was. He just stared. He had no idea how long he’d been there, whether it had been minutes or days or months. It could’ve been forever. It could’ve been a dream, his entire life could’ve been dreamed, and this was his awakening. This was his reality, just cold white walls and silence, waiting forever for something that would never happen.

"Kurt."

Kurt looked up, and Carole had emerged from the mystical doorway.

"It wasn’t a heart attack," she said, sitting down and exhaling loudly. Kurt did the same, thankful for the sounds. "It was angina. He hasn’t had it before, his heart’s been fine ever since- He’ll be okay. He just needs to rest a little more, take a little better care of himself, and he’ll be fine."

"Angina," Kurt repeated, nodding. He’d forgotten what his voice sounded like, and it came out so quiet and hoarse that he barely recognized it.

"I’m going to go back in there," Carole said. "He’s resting. You can come in soon. I just wanted to update you."

Kurt nodded and felt Carole’s arm around his back and a kiss against his temple before she was gone again and he was staring at the floor again, wondering and waiting and not knowing how to feel.

Relieved, he assumed. And he was. But also guilty. Taking care of his dad was always his job. He’d taken that role upon himself and he’d been slacking. He’d been distracted and busy and not keeping track of him, that was his job and he had failed.

He was getting good at losing track of time and simultaneously moments and hours had passed before he heard another voice.

"Kurt?"

Kurt took a deep, shuddering breath when he looked up and saw Blaine standing there.

"What are you-"

"I wanted to… make sure you were okay," Blaine said, gesturing a shrug with one hand and offering a cardboard tray holding two large paper cups with the other. "I brought coffee."

Kurt smiled and nodded, putting his cold cup of sludge onto an empty seat and taking a fresh cup of the good stuff marked ‘Kurt’ from the tray. He took a grateful sip, feeling himself begin to thaw and relax as Blaine sat down beside him.

"Cinnamon syrup," Kurt smiled.

"Your favorite, right?"

Kurt nodded and took another mouthful. It was hot, burning his throat, but it didn’t matter.

"Do you know anything yet?"

"It was angina," Kurt said. "Not a heart attack."

"Good," Blaine said. "I mean, not good that it was angina. But good that it wasn’t a heart attack."

"I know what you meant."

"I’m glad he’s okay," Blaine said. "And you’re okay?"

"Yeah," Kurt breathed. "A little shaken."

They both took sips in the silence, sips in unison, like a bond they’d never broken.

"Where were you?" Kurt asked, eventually.

"What do you mean?"

"When I texted you. Were you… at your hotel? Out? It was late, I don’t know what time it was, but it was dark."

"I was at the airport," Blaine said, and Kurt’s eyes widened.

"The airport? You were… you were leaving."

"I was at the gate. I checked my phone one more time before boarding and your messages were there and… I don’t know what it was, I just left. I got out of there, I told the security guys that there was an emergency and I needed to leave and… my bags are currently on a flight to Los Angeles and I am not with them."

"You didn’t need to do that," Kurt said. "I was upset and panicked and- you’re supposed to be on a plane, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-"

"Yes, you should have," Blaine said, putting a hand on Kurt’s knee. "I don’t know why I did it. But I knew I had to. And I got here and you were sitting here, looking so sad and small and… you look bigger now. Brighter. And I’m glad I came."

"I’m glad you came too," Kurt said, smiling. "And not just because you brought good coffee."

"I figured you’d need it," Blaine said. "It’s late and hospital coffee is horrific."

"Thank you."

"You’re welcome," Blaine said, extending an arm with a questioning look on his face. Kurt smiled, nodded and fell against him, letting Blaine wrap his arms around him and resting his head against Blaine’s chest, finally feeling the spikes in his skin fade and his breathing level out to the steady rhythm of Blaine’s heartbeat.

When Carole reappeared from behind the door, Blaine had to shake Kurt awake for the second time that night.

"You can go and see him now, Kurt."

Kurt grumbled and rubbed his eyes before remembering where he was and what he was doing and standing up, walking in the direction of the corridor he needed. Carole sat down next to Blaine.

"I thought you were leaving,” he heard Carole say to Blaine as he walked away from them.

"Change of plan.”

 

Burt was allowed home early the next morning, and none of them had slept. Carole had stayed on the ward with Burt, and Kurt had stayed in the corridor with Blaine. They hadn’t talked a lot, but the company was welcome.

As soon as Burt was positioned in an armchair and instructed not to move, Carole set about making some soup and Kurt took Blaine upstairs for privacy. Blaine looked around the bedroom, smiling at the parts he remembered.

"It hasn’t changed," Blaine said.

"Not much," Kurt shrugged.

“Do you remember the two weeks I tried to move in here?”

Kurt laughed. “You were so unsubtle. Two weeks is not a sleepover.”

“And your dad thought I was sleeping on the couch when I was just sneaking up here late and back down early.”

“He didn’t think you were staying on the couch for one minute,” Kurt said, fighting a grin. “He just wanted to feel like he was doing something to keep your filthy teenage hands off his innocent son.”

Blaine laughed hard, screwing up his eyes and Kurt joined him in laughter at the memory. After a few moments, they calmed and quiet fell in the room.

"Blaine."

"Kurt."

"Why did you do it?" Kurt asked, sitting down at the foot of the bed.

"Do what?"

"Leave the airport, come back? Why did you do it?"

"Because you needed me," Blaine said. "Or, more likely, you needed someone and I was the first person you thought of."

"You didn’t have to-"

"I did," Blaine said, sitting down beside Kurt. "I couldn’t get on that plane and leave you behind knowing you were going through something." Blaine sat next to Kurt on the foot of the bed. "I… just wanted to know that you were okay."

"Thank you," Kurt said quietly, a smile tugging at his lips. "So, how long do you think you’ll stay?"

"I was thinking I might stick around for a while. If that’s okay with you."

“I thought you weren’t going to run away this time,” Kurt smirked.

“Kurt…”

"It’s okay with me," Kurt said, smiling at Blaine’s frown. "We have a guest bedroom if you-"

"No, that’s okay, I’ll stay at the hotel. They weren’t busy, there’ll be rooms, and… it’s nice, it’s- well, it’s okay, and I don’t want to impose or get in the way or… anything."

Kurt nodded. “Well, you’ll still be around a lot, right?”

"I’ll be around exactly as much as you want me around," Blaine replied, and Kurt smiled.

"I’m glad," Kurt said. "The reunion and then this, it’s made me realize that I don’t really have friends here. Everyone from high school has moved on, moved away. Everyone from New York is in New York. And I mean, I guess I have friends at college here but no real deep connections, you know, just people to hang out with on breaks."

"You went back to school here?" Blaine asked, frowning.

"Yeah- did I not mention that?"

"No," Blaine said. "I’m intrigued."

"It’s nothing, I just signed up for some classes at the University of Lima after I came back here; dad and Carole paid for them in exchange for doing some chores and helping out in the shop. I think they just wanted me to have something to keep me occupied, something to do with my time since jobs were pretty scarce, but ended up registering on a Master’s program. It’s nothing, really, it was just something to do."

"Just something to do," Blaine repeated incredulously. "Grad school is big, it’s not just something to do. What are you studying?"

"Ah, a few things, mostly languages. French, I can officially speak French.” Kurt said, evasively.

"I’m proud," Blaine said, beaming. "You made more of yourself than I have."

"Blaine…"

"No, really. I’ve had next to no work. I got two minor commercials and a handful of extra jobs, none of which paid any money. I wait tables, Kurt, I’m the epitome of a stereotype, and I save every cent I can into a getting-the-hell-out-of-here fund."

"Where do you think you want to end up?"

Blaine shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to do with my life now. I’m a failed theater school graduate, I can’t make it in New York or Los Angeles, there’s nowhere else to go. I should’ve listened to my parents, I should’ve gotten a real degree, something useful like… marketing or chemistry or math and then gone to grad school for performing arts.”

"I never thought I’d hear the words ‘I should’ve listened to my parents’ come out of your mouth, Blaine Anderson," Kurt said, nudging Blaine in the ribs with his elbow. “And you hated chemistry in high school.”

“I really did,” Blaine laughed, squirming away from Kurt’s elbow.

"It’ll be okay,” Kurt said. “You’ll figure something out, I promise. It might not be the dream you had at sixteen, but it’ll be something wonderful."

"If you say so," Blaine said. "So, I’m staying. We’re going to hang out, right?"

"Definitely. We’ve got a lot to catch up on."

"And… friends?"

"Friends," Kurt nodded.

"Good," Blaine smiled. "Then we should… probably talk about the other night. At some point. We don’t have to do it right away, we’re both tired and it’s been a long night for you and-"

"Sleep," Kurt said, yawning. "I’ll sleep. Then we can talk about… that. Okay?"

"Go to sleep," Blaine said, standing up. "Text me when you’re up and I’ll come back."

"Okay," Kurt nodded, standing up and hugging Blaine tight, letting him take his whole weight. "Thank you," he whispered into Blaine’s ear.

"You’re welcome," Blaine replied. "Now, go to bed."

"Yes. Bed. Good."

Blaine smiled as he left the room, clicking the door shut behind him. Kurt climbed into bed quietly, and he listened hard to hear what Blaine was saying to Carole downstairs but it was too muffled, and he was too tired to try any harder.

 

Breadstix never changed. It was part of the charm of the place. They’d occasionally refresh the paint, replace a table that was too dented and wobbly to use or throw out the more stained tablecloths, but it looked the same, smelled the same, had the same food on the menu and, apparently, a lot of the same staff.

"You didn’t have to do this," Kurt said as he swirled a breadstick in a dish of dip..

"You’ve had a rough couple of days, you need some good food. Or - well, food, at least. Plus, if we’re going to discuss such topics as our drunken liaison, then we should do it someplace nice. By Lima standards. If we were in New York, we’d be at the Ritz.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Kurt laughed. He bit into the crunchy stick and chomped down on it hard. He didn’t need to pretend with Blaine - he didn’t feel like he had to restrict his pre-meal breadstick intake, or not eat a gigantic dessert all by himself. Blaine knew how he ate and he didn’t need to apologize for it. On the handful of occasions Kurt had been out on a date with someone other than Blaine, he’d always felt the need to nibble at the appetizers and order the smallest dessert.

"So, we should discuss that," Kurt said, popping the last of his breadstick into his mouth and folding his arms on the table.

"Yes," Blaine said. "Because we shouldn’t leave it to become an issue."

"Absolutely not," Kurt said.

"You’re very formal tonight."

"Well, I’ve never had a conversation like this with someone I’m not… in a relationship with. I don’t know how to conduct such a discussion with a friend, so I’m going with formal.”

"You can go a little less formal, I won’t bite," Blaine said, and Kurt relaxed his shoulders.

"Better?"

"Yes," Blaine said. "So."

"So," Kurt repeated.

"We got drunk."

"Yes we did."

"And we had sex."

"Sort of," Kurt said.

"We sort of had sex."

"Depending on your definition of the term."

"There were orgasms. I think that’s sex whatever way you look at it."

"Okay," Kurt said. "We had sex. In Rachel’s bathroom."

"We’re classy drunks," Blaine said.

"We’re horny drunks," Kurt said, quietly, smirking.

"Do you remember the time in-"

"The elevator in Macy’s?" Kurt laughed. "God, I’ve never been more terrified in my life."

"That was good though," Blaine smiled.

"Really good."

“Very classy,” Blaine said. “Beats a bathroom floor by a long way.”

"So, we just put it down to drunken horniness?"

"Combined with proximity and two years of separation. And spin the bottle."

"It didn’t mean anything," Kurt said.

"Right. It didn’t mean anything."

The waiter chose that moment to bring their meals, almost breaking the threat of a loaded silence. Not quite though, and the quiet hung heavily as they ate, drowning out the noise of the restaurant until finally, Kurt spoke.

"I’m sorry I ran out like that," he said. "It all hit me at once and it freaked me out and I ran away and- god, I just left you there, I’m a horrible person."

"You’re not a horrible person, Kurt," Blaine said. "It’s fine. I was kind of freaked too, actually. Once you’d left, I made a pretty swift exit myself. Except I got about as far as the drive before I remembered that I came with Sam and we were planning to stay there. I didn’t have any money for a cab, so I just… fell asleep on the couch in the living room."

"I had a plan in place in case being in the same room as you got too hard," Kurt admitted. "Mercedes was my getaway driver."

"That would explain the diet coke all night without even the tiniest splash of vodka," Blaine said. "She get you away okay?"

"She bought me cheesecake."

"Ah, the perfect getaway," Blaine said. "I wish I’d had something like that. You know, just in case."

"I just- I expected it to be awful just you being there. After so long, after not seeing you and not speaking to you and everything that happened. But it wasn’t."

"No. It was nice, actually."

"The alcohol helped," Kurt smiled.

"And the kissing."

"And the sex."

"Yep," Blaine laughed. "I’m glad it happened, though. If it led to this, to friendship, then it’s a good thing."

"Yeah, it’s a good thing," Kurt said. "You know, that was actually the first time I… did anything with anyone except my hand for- well, whenever the last time we had sex before it all turned sour was."

"Really?" Blaine said, amazed. "You’ve not been with anyone?"

"Nope," Kurt shrugged. "I wasn’t- waiting for you or anything like that, I just never met anyone else I wanted to do it with. No one else fit the bill."

"I feel… privileged. I think that’s what I mean. That I fit the bill." Blaine said. "And I guess if we’re confessing these things… I haven’t, either."

"Seriously?" Kurt said. "Not even with all those beautiful half-naked boys strutting around on the beach?"

"Even so," Blaine laughed. "Every guy I met was just so… vapid. I’m sure they’re not all like that, but all the guys I met were. So… fake. Ridiculous high pitched voices that were clearly put on, hours in the gym every day and all they could talk about was their juice cleanse or their protein intake. I could never have dated someone like that. I mean, I like to stay healthy, but I also like pizza."

"Hear hear," Kurt said. "And I’ll ignore the ridiculous high pitched voice comment."

"Kurt, seriously, these guys were faking it to sound gayer or something. If you caught them off guard, they’d be an octave lower. You know I love your voice.”

Kurt grinned. “I know, I just like messing with you.”

"You’re evil."

"You’re too easy to screw with."

Sitting at the table, laughing with Blaine, felt like the old times. It felt like it had before everything had gone wrong. It felt like that was another lifetime; a blip in the timeline- a moderately sized nuclear explosion in the timeline, perhaps, but now the dust was settling. Soon the clumsy, awkward protective suits could come off and they could begin real business of rebuilding whatever they could from the wreckage. Right now, it was just good to have Blaine there indefinitely, but already talking about his life in Los Angeles like his past, not the present. Kurt didn’t want to stay in Lima forever but if Blaine was there, perhaps he’d reconsider it.


	6. Five

Burt spent weeks insisting that he was fine. At a checkup a month later, he was told that he was in great shape and if he made sure he kept his diet healthy and his medication regular, he’d be fine. He was still being treated with kid gloves at home, however, and while he didn’t mind the way he was forced into sitting down and relaxing while everyone else did the housework and the cooking around him, the desperate lack of beer in the house made it less enjoyable, and he made that fact known. Loudly. Blaine was there a lot of the time, and it turned out that he was a useful addition to the household. He was there when Kurt got home from work and he stayed most of the evening and arrived again the next morning, usually after Kurt had left but occasionally before. He cleaned, he cooked, he went grocery shopping with the money Carole would leave on the counter. He helped out in the shop when an extra pair of hands was needed, and he had taken responsibility for the paperwork so Burt didn’t have to get stressed out when there were three fewer boxes of screws than there should’ve been. He had taken it all on and repeatedly refused payment. Burt had put him on the payroll for the shop anyway so he could be paid, however reluctantly, for the paperwork and the hours he spent in ill-fitting coveralls underneath a greasy car with only a basic idea of what he was actually doing.

Having Blaine around the house was driving Kurt insane. Blaine was there all the time, and Kurt loved that part. He loved that he was helping out, that his dad was more relaxed than he had been in years and that Blaine was always smiling like he’d found a place where he felt at home. But Kurt had been prepared for Blaine to be gone again, he had been ready to watch him leave and pretend to get over him all over again. Instead, he was there, with his ass in tight jeans and wearing over-sized coveralls because none of the sets in the shop were designed for someone of Blaine’s height and build - the guys who worked there were rarely as small and slim as Blaine, after all. Sometimes he’d be cooking, in what was usually Kurt’s domain, but Kurt didn’t mind relinquishing it. If LA had left Blaine with nothing else, he had learned to cook something more than canned soup, grilled cheese and salad. Blaine would be reading out of a recipe book and dancing to the radio wearing Kurt’s favorite apron, usually covered in flour or cornstarch, spattered with tiny orange spots from the bubbling pot of sauce or sweating from standing over boiling water. He looked so damn good, all ruffled and hot and busy, that Kurt would just hide upstairs with a paper he needed to write or a pile of translations he needed to grade until dinner was ready.

They talked a lot, when Kurt wasn’t avoiding Blaine for fear of becoming too aroused to function. They talked like friends did, sharing stories from the two years of life they missed. They had regularly scheduled dance parties in the kitchen on Saturday afternoons while Kurt was directing Blaine in a new baking endeavor. Nothing more had happened. They didn’t acknowledge the sexual tension or perhaps Kurt was imagining it. Maybe Blaine had really put it all down to drunken proximity and moved on. He was quietly pleased that Blaine kept refusing the offer of the guest bedroom. It was stressful enough having him around, being friends and distinctly nothing more, and it would be even more stressful to live with him.

Having Blaine around so much had led him and Kurt to develop a kind of routine. It was silly and it amused them; to outsiders it could’ve been seen as cute or even flirty, but it was definitely just a fun little game. The domesticity of it was nice, though. Kurt would get home from work, usually around four, to a hot cup of his favorite tea fresh and waiting for him.

“You made me tea,” Kurt would say affectionately, and Blaine would grin proudly. He would wait for ten minutes while the tea cooled so Blaine could tell him what he had been doing that day.

“I fixed a crankshaft!” he would announce excitedly one day, and “I spent eight hours taking inventory and running errands,” less enthusiastically the next. Kurt would disappear upstairs with his tea – “Right, I should get started on all this paperwork,” he’d sigh - before Blaine had chance to ask about his day. He would reappear downstairs a couple of hours later for dinner, once his parents were home, having worked on an assignment or graded a few papers. Burt would usually retire to the living room for the evening to watch TV after dinner, usually a show about truck drivers in extreme weather. Carole would work on her latest craft project in an armchair and Kurt and Blaine would sit on the sofa and watch TV, sufficiently distanced from each other, until Blaine would leave around nine.

The routine went as usual every day until the day that Burt and Carole had gone out of town to visit Carole’s sister. Blaine had still been around, still cooked, but no one else was home.

"You didn’t have to do this, you know," Kurt said, sitting down at the table as Blaine was dishing cheese-covered potatoes onto two plates. “I can fend for myself.”

“What else would I have done? Sat in a depressing hotel room all day watching crappy cable?”

"I’m not complaining, I’m just saying. It smells great," Kurt said. "I’m going to miss this."

"Miss this when?" Blaine asked as he turned around to face Kurt, his brows knitting together in a frown.

"I have to go away for work next week," Kurt said. "That’s all. And it’s going to be a week of bad hotel food and late night vending machine snacks and it’s not going to be the same."

Blaine laid the plates of food on the placemats and sat down opposite Kurt, folding his arms on the table.

"You know, you’ve never actually told me what you do."

"I haven’t?" Kurt said, shifting in his seat and averting his gaze.

"Nope. You’ve been very evasive about the subject. I know you leave early, I know you get back around four but sometimes you work late. I know you have paperwork to do at home, but I don’t know the nature of this paperwork. I know you wear some nice suits, although knowing you, you could be working at a Taco Bell and still show up in your Sunday best. And I know you go to school for your extremely vague French-related classes at some point during the day."

"It’s kind of… It’s not what I’d planned to do with my life," Kurt said. "It’s like I think you’re going to… judge me or think I’m wasting my life or something, and I know you won’t but…"

"I won’t judge you," Blaine said softly. "You seem happy doing it. Whatever it is. You look happy when you get home, you sing while you’re holed up doing your paperwork, you’re smiling now just talking about it.”

"I am?" Kurt said, touching his hands to his cheeks to find them bulging. He hadn’t realized.

"So, tell me."

"I- I’m a teacher," Kurt said, his shoulders rising to his ears like he was trying to fold in on himself. “Well, I’m going to be. I go to class three days a week this semester, and the rest of the time, I teach French at McKinley. I’m technically still an assistant, but I’ve pretty much taken over teaching.”

"Wow, Kurt, that’s… really great."

"You think it’s stupid," Kurt said, folding his arms defensively.

"I don’t," Blaine said sincerely. "I remember how much you helped me get through French. You taught me everything I’ve already forgotten. Which isn’t a slight on your teaching abilities, I’m just really bad at French."

"You were a pretty terrible student," Kurt laughed. "I guess… I think I’m a good teacher. The stats seem to say so. I’ve got kids who used to get D’s getting B’s. I’ve got kids who never showed up actually coming to class, and they must be learning something. There’s this one particular group I only ever knew as names on a list who started actually showing up about three weeks ago and I’ve already got them all up to C’s, and one of them even got a B on a test this week."

"That’s amazing," Blaine said, grinning hard. "You’re happy."

"I’m happy," Kurt nodded. "I don’t think I want to do it forever, but it’s fun."

"So why do you have to go away again? Field trip to France?"

"Not quite so exotic," Kurt laughed. "I drop in on the Glee club from time to time when I’m free. They reformed a couple of years ago after Sue was forced into retirement, and I’ve subbed for them a couple of times. The second faculty member who was supposed to go with them on their trip to Nationals next week got sick so they’ve asked me to accompany them to Connecticut."

"You’re the new Will Schuester!" Blaine laughed, then composed himself. "I’m sorry. You dress much better than he did. And you have better hair. Go on."

“I hate you,” Kurt glared, trying to force away his smile. “They asked me and I got my schedule cleared, so I’m going with them to Connecticut for the competition. I’m kind of nervous for them, actually.”

“They’ll be great,” Blaine said, taking a mouthful of potato.

“I hope so,” Kurt said, cutting into his meat. “They’ve won the past two years, but this year they’re a young team, they’ve never been to a competition like Nationals before.”

“They’ve got you supporting them,” Blaine said. “They’ll be great.”

 

Dinner was Blaine’s finest culinary achievement by far. Despite eating his cooking regularly now, Kurt was always a little bit surprised when meal after meal was not only edible but delicious. He felt full and lazy when they retired to the couch for an evening of the crappiest reality TV they could find, and they had just settled on a so-offensive-it’s-good show about twelve lesbian midgets in a house together on some ridiculous cable channel that neither of them were even aware existed when Kurt’s cell rang.

"Hi, sweetie," Carole said down the line. "I just wanted to let you know that we won’t be coming home tonight. We hadn’t realized how late it had gotten and it’ll just be easier to drive back in the morning. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, that’s fine,” Kurt said. “Don’t worry about me."

"You’ve eaten?"

"I had dinner," Kurt smiled. "And I’m all caught up on work so, with the house to myself, I get to watch awful TV without anyone complaining."

"Sounds like you’ve got a wild night planned," Carole laughed. "See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

Kurt hung up and tossed his phone onto the coffee table, and Blaine nudged him in the thigh with his big toe.

"What was that?"

"Carole. They’re going to drive back in the morning now, they lost track of time."

"Ah, so you have the house to yourself."

"I have," Kurt smirked. "Unless the right company decided to join me."

"I suppose I could stay a while longer- wait, you meant me, right?"

"Yes, I meant you, dumbass," Kurt laughed. "You’ll stay?"

"Yeah, I’ll stay."

"Good."

 

The room was dark and neither of them had bothered to get up to close the drapes, so the streetlight outside was the only source of illumination, casting oddly shaped shadows. The TV was off as the lesbian midget show had become too offensive to bear, and Blaine had moved just far enough to stretch out and press play on the stereo so that there was music to fill the space where the TV had been. They were close now, sitting cross legged on the sofa, facing each other, as the Les Mis soundtrack played its final chord, ending their time as duet partners.

"This has been nice," Kurt said, smiling.

"Yeah, it has."

"So, uh, I was thinking…"

"Yeah?" Blaine cocked his head to one side, urging Kurt to continue.

"We could… do this more often."

"Sing together?"

"Yeah. Sing together. We’re good. We’ve always been good."

"We are pretty amazing," Blaine agreed.

They were silent for a moment, close enough to feel the other’s breath against their skin, to see the strange ways that the streetlamp cast its shadows in the crevices of their faces. The air felt thick with anticipation, Kurt’s head swam from it, and then Blaine reached out and took his hand and Kurt felt grounded, safe. He closed his fingers around Blaine’s and tugged gently, pulling Blaine close enough to kiss. Once, softly, and then breaking apart again to make eye contact and take a deep shuddering breath. He stared into Blaine’s eyes and tried to figure out if he had just made a mistake, without the sweet excuse of alcohol to justify it. But Blaine was looking straight at him, his eyes wide and his cheeks flushed. Blaine’s lips parted just a little and he moved back in towards Kurt. They kissed harder this time, surer and with more force, until it was a mess of lips and tongues and saliva, hands running over bodies and through hair, messing up the careful results of too much mirror time and not caring one bit.

"Kurt," Blaine gasped, pulling away enough to speak and breathe, pressing his forehead against Kurt’s. "Are you- I mean, do you want-"

"I’m sure," Kurt said simply, regaining his own breath.

"We could- more comfortable?"

"Bed?"

Blaine just nodded and they quickly untangled themselves and stood. Kurt took Blaine by the hand with a smile, and led him up the stairs and into his bedroom.

The door clicked shut behind them and they fell immediately onto the bed, Kurt underneath Blaine, kissing harder and faster with hands scrabbling at clothing and clothed cocks pressing together. Blaine kissed every inch of Kurt’s chest as he unbuttoned Kurt’s shirt, pushing it off his shoulders and away onto the floor before starting in earnest on his belt. Kurt’s fingers quickly undid Blaine’s bowtie, cursing the universe that he still wore them, but the muscle memory was still intact after years of dormancy and quickly, Kurt pulled Blaine’s shirt up and over his head. They resumed kissing naked, with knees bumping and chests, stomachs, cocks touching, skin on skin, hot and soft and perfect underneath palms and fingertips.

Every movement of cock against hard cock was filled with electricity, with not enough and the promise of more. Blaine fell to the side and shuffled closer to Kurt until they were pressed together again, and reached down a hand to wrap around both cocks together, pressing them firmly together and running his hand up and down, both thrusting into this tight fist and Kurt moaning when Blaine let his thumb run over his head, rubbing gently right near the slit in a sinful tease. Kurt had begun to feel the tight heat of an orgasm beginning to pool and swirl low in his belly, so he reluctantly pulled away and reached into the nightstand drawer to pull out a condom and a bottle of lube.

"I thought you hadn’t been with anyone," Blaine said, nodding towards the large, half-used pump bottle of lube.

"No one who isn’t eight inches tall, made of silicone, and named Maurice," Kurt said, closing the drawer and sitting back on his haunches.

"Oh, god," Blaine moaned, pumping himself twice before stopping himself and reaching out to open the condom and roll it gently along Kurt’s cock, smiling at the soft moans Kurt was making. "I want you, Kurt," he mumbled, pressing his face against Kurt’s lower belly and sucking a kiss in the coarse hair there.

"You have me," Kurt said softly, leaning down to kiss Blaine once sweetly on the lips. Blaine leaned back against the pillows, knees spread, exposed and gorgeous, his cock red and shining against his stomach. Kurt settled between his knees and leaned down to press tiny kisses along the length of Blaine’s shaft. Blaine moaned loudly when he kissed lightly just underneath the head before moving backwards and pumping the clear lube onto his hand. He ran one lubed finger down Blaine’s balls, his perineum, and around his hole, swirling once before swiping gently across it and watching the little hole twitch involuntarily at the contact. Kurt gently stroked a couple more times before gently pushing in his index finger to the knuckle, feeling his cock ache at the soft moans of pleasure he could hear from Blaine. Blaine was tight, out of practice, and it took a little coaxing but once the muscles that were clamped around his finger relaxed a little, Kurt pushed in up to the hilt and proceeded to move his finger in and out several times, gradually gaining speed.

"More," Blaine gasped. "Please, more."

"Okay," Kurt said, kissing the inside of Blaine’s thigh as he inserted his second finger and curled them inside just right, enjoying the way Blaine squirmed and bucked and gasped. Blaine was gently stroking himself, just with his fingertips, not enough to get him off but enough that when Kurt looked up, he could see silver strings of pre-come shining between the rosy head of Blaine’s cock and the pad of his thumb.

"Please more, need you Kurt, need you, not your fingers, need your cock, please, oh god fuck me please," Blaine plead brokenly when Kurt had three fingers inside him, and Kurt might have just needed to be inside him in that moment more than he needed to breathe.

“You have me,” Kurt repeated, slowly drawing his fingers out. He leaned forward over Blaine, hooking Blaine’s legs over his shoulders, and kissed him, deep and dirty, all tongue and teeth and saliva and wonderful, desperate need. He stayed bent over, stayed close to Blaine, and reached down a hand to guide himself into Blaine, watching the way the skin next to his eyes crinkled, how his mouth fell just slightly open and the way he eventually sighed and his face flattened into blissful relief as Kurt moved in, slowly filling Blaine to the hilt, the tight heat surrounding him making him lose his breath.

It had been so long since he’d done this, since he’d been inside Blaine or anyone and he had missed it. He missed the heat and the reality and the unpredictability. He missed watching Blaine’s face as he slipped inside, he missed Blaine’s babbling and begging and sloppy, uncoordinated kisses as he stroked himself. It was all coming back, every delicious memory of how good they used to be, how amazing every single time was. Everything from the quickest handjob to the long, drawn out evenings of fucking and kissing and fucking and having two, three, four, sometimes five orgasms in a night before collapsing, spent and exhausted and sore and satisfied beyond comprehension. Every last bit of it had been amazing and Kurt was reliving it, he was remembering it. As he began to slowly thrust in and out of Blaine and felt the twitching of tight muscles around him, he wanted it more and more to come back into his life, into his world. He had enough dildos to fill a porn studio, hidden away in drawers and trunks, but they just weren’t the same. As he thrust harder and harder, he felt Blaine coming around him, squeezing tight and hard and bucking his hips to take as much of Kurt as he could, and the rhythmic squeeze of Blaine’s orgasm tipped Kurt over the edge and he came too, coming together and coming harder than either of them had ever managed by themselves, until they were panting, soft and sweaty and sticky. Blaine winced a little when Kurt pulled out, and Kurt didn’t care if the tied-off condom he tossed landed even close to the trashcan. He could feel his heart rate slowing again.

Blaine had a pool of his own come on his belly getting colder and tackier by the second, and he just laid there, eyes closed, catching his breath and letting it begin to congeal in his soft stomach hair. Kurt reached out to grab a tissue from the box on the nightstand and gently cleaned him up before pressing a kiss below his bellybutton and tossing the tissue in the same direction as the condom. He lay back down beside Blaine, on top of Blaine’s proffered arm. Blaine curled his hand around Kurt’s shoulder and pulled him in tight, and Kurt kissed the side of his chest in response. They were hot and sweat-sticky but uncaring, because the afterglow was never the same alone. It was filled with a strange sense of guilt, of loneliness. The afterglow was better together. It meant glowing together, cooling and calming and breathing together, kissing softly like Blaine kissed Kurt, holding hands and playing with fingers and being naked together in a way both sexual and not at all, intimate and warm and safe. It was precisely what Kurt had missed about sex, and precisely the thing he had forgotten that he missed until then, in the afterglow with Blaine, breathing together and softly kissing and remembering that the best parts of sex weren’t in packets and bottles and sweat and orgasms, but in the moments afterward, in the quiet calm of two hearts becoming a little more entwined.


	7. Six

Kurt awoke to sunlight, bright and piercing and magnified by glass. He hadn’t closed the curtains last night, and it took him a second to remember why. Blaine was still there, asleep, hair disheveled against the pillow, sheets draped across his bare waist as he unconsciously bathed in the sun. Kurt had a full view of Blaine’s back. Smooth, unblemished skin stretched over tight muscle, the groove of his spine leading teasingly under the sheets to his bare ass. Kurt’s awakening caused Blaine to stir, to turn over and groan and hold his arm up to his eyes to block out the brightness.

"Kurt," he grunted. "You there?"

"I’m here," Kurt said, settling back against the pillows. "You okay?"

"M’okay," Blaine said. "Just… remembering."

"Yeah, I had that. Remembering. You want coffee, or-"

"Coffee later. Remembering now."

"Remembering now," Kurt repeated.

"We had sex," Blaine said, almost questioningly, like he wasn’t sure if he’d just dreamed it.

"Yes, we did."

"Actual sex this time. No… definitions. Actual definite sex in the ass."

"That’s definitely what it was," Kurt laughed and then caught himself. "So, uh…"

"We said we weren’t going to do that again," Blaine said and then smacked himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. "Was that really stupid? Did we do a really stupid thing last night?"

"I don’t know," Kurt admitted. "Does this mean that we… I don’t know, we can’t trust ourselves alone together or something?"

"I should be here less," Blaine said. "I’m here too much. It’s too hard for us."

"You’re not here too much," Kurt said, placing a hand on Blaine’s forearm and quickly removing it. "You’re here the perfect amount. And you’re really appreciated, I hope you know that."

"But if this is going to become a problem, then-"

"Is it a problem for you?"

"No, I mean- yeah- no- maybe? It’s too early."

"Yeah," Kurt breathed as Blaine screwed his eyes shut tight. "You never were a morning person."

"Did you say something about coffee before?"

"Yeah, I can make some."

"Coffee,” Blaine moaned. “Coffee good. Coffee makes the thinking hurt less."

"Okay," Kurt said, laughing at how ridiculous Blaine could be pre-caffeine in the mornings. He’d forgotten. "I’ll be back in a minute. Stay there."

Kurt climbed out of bed, and hugged himself, rubbing his palms quickly against his arms. The sun through the window was warm but the rest of the room was still chilly, so he pulled on his thicker robe and ran downstairs to set up the coffee machine. The gurgling and spluttering of the machine seemed to take an age and Kurt danced around the kitchen while it worked, desperately trying to burn some of the nerves. Blaine was upstairs in his bed, naked and wanting to talk. Post-caffeine Blaine wanted to talk. And they had sex. Kurt’s fingers still felt extra soft from the lube and everything was too complicated. It hurt thinking about him, but not thinking about him hurt more. It hurt seeing him but it was so good to kiss him, touch him, be with him. There was too much, it was all too much, and part of Kurt was thankful that he was about to get away from it all for a week.

"Coffee," Kurt smiled, placing a mug into Blaine’s waiting hands before shrugging his robe onto the floor and climbing back into bed with his own. After a few long, quiet sips, Blaine spoke.

"Good coffee," he said, smiling.

"Thanks. I’ve had a lot of practice."

"You were a fine barista back in the day, Kurt Hummel. I don’t think I ever told you that."

"You were busy," Kurt shrugged.

"So," Blaine said. "We… had sex last night."

"No arguments here."

"That was… unplanned."

"Was it though?" Kurt asked, turning his head towards Blaine and raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"You stayed here even though we were going to be alone, you made dinner, you practically volunteered to stay the night after spending several hours singing with me."

Blaine ducked his head, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, a hint of a smile on his face. When he looked back at Kurt a moment later, his expression was like a kid caught stealing from the cookie jar.

"Okay, so maybe I thought that if we spent some time together, proper time alone, like we haven’t had for nearly three years, then maybe we could… talk, that’s all. I wasn’t planning on all of that happening."

"No?"

"I promise,” Blaine said earnestly. “I just thought that maybe we could talk. I mean, we’ve had this little domestic thing going, right? I thought- I thought you might be wanting something and I thought that maybe if we had dinner and hung out then we could talk a little. That’s all."

"I- yeah,” Kurt said, stumbling over his words. “We  _have_  had this domestic thing going. And it’s been really nice.” He sighed heavily and set his mug down on the nightstand. “It’s- it’s so messed up, Blaine.”

"Messed up?"

"I want you. I’ve always wanted you. That’s never gone away. You’re remarkably unforgettable, Blaine Anderson."

"I’ll take that as a compliment."

"But every time I think about it- about us, about the possibility of us being us again, I get scared. Because you’ve hurt me really badly twice in our lives. And I’m scared that it’ll keep happening over and over, and I’ll keep giving you more and more chances because I’m in love with you and something in me thinks that’s enough."

The door downstairs slammed shut, cutting Kurt off. His eyes widened as he listened hard, suddenly filled with panic.

"Kurt? We’re home, buddy!" Burt called up the stairs. "You up yet?"

"Yeah, I’m up!" Kurt called back, then whispered to Blaine. "Stay here. I’ll see what’s going on with them, say hello, ask about their night, I’ll be back really soon."

"Why don’t I just-"

"No," Kurt said. "Because they’ll know what happened, they’re not stupid, and they’ll either get excited or mad and I’m not ready for either of those possibilities right now. So just stay there, drink your coffee. Hell, drink  _my_  coffee, just let me try to get rid of them and I’ll be back.”

Kurt grabbed his robe again and wrapped it around himself, running down the stairs to greet his parents.

"Hey, guys," he said, and he the words left his mouth he knew he sounded like he was trying to hide something. He sat the kitchen table and accepted the fresh mug of coffee Carole handed him, sipping it delicately. "Good time?"

"You bet," Burt said. "Great food at this little restaurant in Columbus, then we saw a movie and Carole’s sister has the best guest bedroom, you wouldn’t believe. I’ve never slept so well."

"He’s a big fan of the four poster bed, your father," Carole said with an affectionate smile, kissing the top of Burt’s head.

"It just made me feel fancy," Burt protested. "I don’t get to feel fancy all that often. I own a tire shop for heaven’s sake; I spend most of my life covered in car oil. It’s good to feel fancy once in a while. Blows out the cobwebs."

"So, Kurt, what did you do with yourself?" Carole asked, changing the subject effortlessly.

"Uh, well, dinner, watched some trashy TV, got an early night, nothing too exciting."

"Did you see Blaine?"

"Uh, yeah, he stayed around for a little while, but then he, uh, left." Kurt could feel himself burning up under his robe- it was too obvious that he was lying through his teeth.

"I’ll have to give him a call later," Burt said, barely hiding a mischievous grin. "I’ve got a ton of paperwork just come in from the shop, last minute, and he’s been so good at taking care of it that I haven’t got a clue how the new system he’s implemented works. I’ll call him now, actually, while I think about it."

"No!" Kurt protested, a little too urgently and loudly, but Burt was already dialing on his cell, and the sound of Blaine’s ringtone was coming from upstairs.

"He… he must’ve left his phone here," Kurt said, and Burt just raised an eyebrow and hung up the phone before Blaine could get the chance to answer.

"Carole, honey,” Burt said, grinning. “You feel like breakfast out? My treat. Give Kurt a little more time to practice his lying skills."

"Dad!"

"No, really, I sent you to that fancy drama school of yours, I can see that it was worth every penny." Burt was practically doubled over with laugher, enjoying himself hugely.

"Come on, Burt," Carole said, laughing. "Let’s go and get that breakfast, huh?"

Carole pulled Burt up by the arm and dragged him out, giving Kurt a wink over her shoulder as she pushed him out of the house. Burt was still laughing when the door closed, and Kurt scowled bitterly after them as he heard the car engine start.

"You’re back," Blaine said, definitely much more awake than he had been, sprawled out in the sunny patch, and Kurt was sure he had managed to get more gorgeous in the time he’d been gone.

"I’m back," Kurt smiled. "You’ve woken up."

"Yup. You deal with them okay?"

"They’ve gone out for breakfast," Kurt said, taking off his robe once more and climbing back into bed. "I don’t think I was as subtle as I could’ve been, though."

“Mm, I guessed that from the conveniently timed phone call from your dad,” Blaine laughed. “So. You were in the middle of telling me how hard it is to look at me?”

"Not quite," Kurt said. "Just that it’s still really confusing. And you can hardly blame me for being hesitant to- us, to be us again. I mean, the first time you cheated on me, the second time you walked out on me when we were engaged. We don’t have a great track record. I know you weren’t solely to blame for either of those events, but they both still ended up with me sad and alone and without you. And I don’t want that to happen again. I couldn’t handle it if it happened again. I have to decide if it’s worth the risk."

Blaine was quiet, nodding tiny nods to himself, acknowledging the truth in what Kurt was saying.

"Okay," Blaine said, eventually. "So what you’re saying is, you just… need some time."

"Right," Kurt said. "I’ve got this trip to Connecticut. Maybe the time away will make it easier. Maybe their performance of  _Teenage Dream_  will do something for me.”

"They’re seriously singing that song?" Blaine laughed.

"Yeah," Kurt said. "I nearly fell over when I saw their setlist. The theme is ‘classics from the past twenty years’. How old does that make you feel?"

"Geriatric," Blaine said. "Okay so, you think about whatever you need to think about and we’ll talk when you get back?"

"Yes," Kurt said. "When I get back, we’ll get coffee or something. Progress update. I might even buy you a present."

"From Connecticut? What do they even have there?"

"I don’t know," Kurt said. “The competition’s in New Haven, it’s a college town, they have… Yale. That might be all. Yale sweatshirt?"

"Your taste for sartorial irony astounds me," Blaine smirked. "Can I just- whatever you decide… I know I’ve screwed this up before. Twice. Spectacularly. And I don’t deserve even the tiniest second- third, actually, third chance, so the fact that you’re even considering it means more to me than you can imagine. And I don’t know where we’re going to end up or if we’ll be there together, and… I don’t know anything, but I know that I really,  _really_  hate the way that we ended before.”

"Me too," Kurt said. "We were both to blame for that, really."

"No, we-"

"No, Blaine. We were the people in the statistics. No one can live in Manhattan unless they’re rich or earning a fortune. We thought we’d be different, we thought it’d be like on TV, and we ended up just like everyone else who tries to live there on minimum wage. It was a terrible idea, and if I could go back in a time machine, I would go back to that version of Kurt and Blaine and punch them both in the face for being such complete idiots."

Blaine laughed. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

"I wanted to get out of there too,” Kurt sighed. “I just wasn’t brave enough yet, and I was too pig-headed to give up on the New York I dreamed of, when it was a living hell, and… I think you leaving was actually a catalyst for good things.” Blaine nodded silently, and Kurt continued. “I need to know that this,  _us_ , isn’t just me holding onto another fantasy with a bad reality in the hopes that it’ll turn good again.”

"Of course," Blaine said. "Take your time. I’m not going anywhere."

"Is Cooper mad at you?" Kurt asked.

"He’s… annoyed. I don’t know if my stuff is still intact or if he went on the rampage he promised," Blaine shrugged. "I guess at some point I should go back and tie up some ends there but…"

"You’ll figure something out," Kurt said.

"Yeah, I will," Blaine said.

Blaine reached out at that and took Kurt’s hand, hesitantly at first but then squeezing it tight. Kurt smiled softly and squeezed back, and they sat there, in silence, hands clasped above the sheets and still completely naked underneath them, for as long as it took. In that moment, Kurt knew Blaine would be there, with the silent support that Blaine had mastered.

Kurt remembered a health class with Miss Holliday in high school, more frank than the usual class was, and he remembered her saying that school was about working hard all the time, and work was about working hard all the time, but relationships weren’t meant to be like that. They were only supposed to be work some of the time. Relationships were like houses, she had said. Sometimes it just needed a touch up, some spackle in the cracks and a new coat of paint, and sometimes, the whole building needed to be demolished and rebuilt. This thing with Blaine, if there was going to be a thing at all, would need rebuilding entirely. Everything had fallen apart, but the foundations were still there, still strong. Maybe now they were ready to be rebuilt, after all this time. Kurt would have to decide. Blaine would give him all the time in the world. Blaine could be too patient sometimes, and Kurt loved that.

Airports were miserable places at the best of times. Kurt wasn’t a fan of them- he liked the flying part, he had no issue with that, but the waiting around for hours before the flying part happened was dull and the stores could only entertain him for so long. This time he had the added thrill of thirteen teenagers to keep track of. He and John Harrison, history teacher and Glee club instructor, managed to herd them through security without too much fuss, every kid metal-free thanks to a harsh lecture in their final rehearsal threatening the removal of solos from anyone who set off the alarm. They were allowed to roam the departure lounge freely, in groups of two or more. They could browse the stores as long as none of them bought anything stupid or broke something they couldn’t afford to pay for. Kurt had given strict instructions that they were all to be back at the coffee shop at a very specific seven forty three, and they were all to keep their cell phones on because he wasn’t going to lose anyone’s damn kid in an airport.

He set them loose, and sat in a chair, hunched over a paper cup that was slowly losing its heat, and tried in vain to keep track of them all. John was a nervous flier, and he had left Kurt to walk around a little. He watched faces he recognized pop in and out among the crowds, and they all looked so young. There were only two seniors left, the rest of the team were fifteen and they seemed so small. They were talented, definitely, but quietly so. They were determined but lacked confidence. They didn’t have a Rachel Berry or a Finn Hudson or a Blaine Anderson to pump them up, to lead the team. They could be spooked by teams who were louder and more confident than they were, and that was Kurt’s biggest concern for them.

Kurt didn’t know what he was doing. Sitting in that airport coffee shop was the first time he’d really acknowledged it. He knew how to be a teacher, in theory, but in practice he felt like he was always stumbling his way through. His methods seemed to work, but he didn’t always do things deliberately. He didn’t know how to encourage a glee club to victory and yet the burden seemed to have fallen on him, as an alumnus and former member, to be their biggest support system. He had spent lot of time, imagining what Mr. Schuester would’ve done, and planned to do the exact opposite. He felt odd, disconnected from himself. That morning, he had woken up next to Blaine for the first time in years, and now it was evening and he was in an airport, thrown straight back into teaching mode on a Sunday night when all he could think about was how badly he didn’t want to leave Ohio.


	8. Seven

Kurt’s hotel room was predictably dull, uninspiring and just like every other hotel room in the world. The air conditioning seemed to be stuck on the coldest setting and the shower sputtered and dribbled lukewarm water. The walls were thin and he could hear the drone of over-excited teenagers in the rooms around his own. The kids had been divided into pairs to share twin rooms, with one group of three in a family room, and instructed to rest so they’d be ready for rehearsals tomorrow. Kurt knew that they had piled into one tiny room or maybe two and they would be exhausted for rehearsals tomorrow. He’d been an excited kid at nationals once, he knew what it was like. His teacher-brain wanted to go and knock on doors and tell them off, but despite all the downsides of the hotel, the bed looked inviting enough to leave them to it and let them learn the hard way. They’d driven him and everyone else crazy on the plane, singing constantly until the attendants had asked them to stop. John Harrison had popped some pills and slept right through, leaving Kurt to deal with them and he was more than pissed at all of them. He scrolled through his phone in the dark, sent a quick message to his dad to let him know he’d arrived safe and turned it over on the nightstand before he replied to the still unread message Blaine had sent before the plane had taken off. He told himself he was playing it cool by not replying, acting like it didn’t matter if Blaine had wished him a good trip or not. He told himself that he would have enough time to think about Blaine over the week without him taking up any more of his long, weird, Sunday.

Being the secondary staff member on the trip meant that Kurt didn’t really have to take any responsibility for the kids, and yet being a soon-to-be fully paid up teacher made him feel like he should. Kurt was the one knocking on hotel room doors at ten o’clock the next morning, while John ran downstairs to see if there was any way they could keep breakfast running just a little longer for them. Kurt was the one corralling thirteen sleepy teenagers into an elevator in their pajamas when word came that they could have an extra fifteen minutes to eat whatever was left on the hotplates. Kurt was the one who laid down the law before setting the kids off for some free time before their rehearsal slot that afternoon. Kurt was the one collapsing into a canvas chair outside a small bar near the theater, where coffee machines sat beside bottles of spirits and glass-fronted refrigerators filled with fruit juice and beer, his only thoughts screaming doubts about his career choice while John went inside to order coffees.

Kurt liked John fine, as a colleague. He was a talented performer and he trained his glee kids well. He was older than Kurt, only by ten years though he seemed older than that. He taught history and did nothing to challenge the stereotype. He wore tweed and carried an antique briefcase and spoke in a tone that dripped with ‘the things I’m teaching you are probably very interesting, but my voice will put you to sleep regardless’.Kurt felt extremely young beside him, like a kid pretending to be a teacher in a schoolyard game. For every other teacher he met, it was a career, a vocation, and Kurt almost felt bad that he had every intention of not teaching forever. Teaching was for now. McKinley was for now. He didn’t want to be the guy who was still turning up and boring kids to death when he was eighty. He didn’t want to still be doing it when he was sixty, or fifty, or forty, but maybe he would be. If teaching was the only way he could be any kind of performer, be on any kind of stage at all, then it was better than nothing.

Once rehearsals were under way in the theater, Kurt left John watching and walked back to the hotel for some peace. They had sounded great, but John was about to put them through their paces and Kurt wasn’t ready to get roped into an impromptu boot camp. He fell backwards onto his cold bed, neat and pressed where he’d left it in a tangled heap, and closed his eyes against the harsh ceiling light. He’d been so determinedly  _not_  thinking about Blaine all day that his stomach ached from thinking about him all day, a kind of deep, nervous ache that crept into his muscles and his bones, that made his head feel light and fuzzy in a way that stuck it firmly in Kurt’s mental ‘pro’ column.

He barely acknowledged it when his hand pulled his phone from his pocket, and it took the shrill ringing in his ear for his brain to catch up.

“Hi,” Blaine said, his voice soft down the line.

“Hey,” Kurt said, trying to remain calm, trying to sit himself upright. “Are you busy?”

“Not particularly.”

“I just… thought I’d say hi.”

“Hi,” Blaine repeated, and Kurt’s stomach gave a jolt. “How’s the trip?”

“Good,” Kurt said, puffing up the pillows to lean back against them. “Tiring. Kids are in rehearsal, they looked great but I thought I’d get away for a bit. I think they’re quietly confident.”

“If I know the New Directions spirit, they’ll blow the competition away.”

“I hope so,” Kurt said, shrugging. “They’ve latched onto the fact that their main rivals are all from the west coast and they’re hoping they’ll be too jetlagged to beat them. I’m not sure any of them understand how jetlag works, but I don’t want to burst their bubble.”

Blaine laughed and the line crackled from the blast of breath.

“How’s everything at home?” Kurt asked. “Have you… still been there?”

“Of course,” Blaine said. “Your dad is working me hard. I think he thinks I need a distraction or something, because I’m going over invoices I’m sure I filed a month ago and he’s got me taking inventory this afternoon when I just did it on Friday.”

“He tries,” Kurt laughed. “I don’t think he knows how to run that business without you now.”

“So, what’s your week looking like?” Blaine said, shifting the subject back.

“Lots of rehearsals,” Kurt said. “Competition day on Friday, landing back in Ohio on Saturday evening. I’ll see you when I’m back?”

“Definitely,” Blaine said. “What time do you land?”

“Just after eight, but after baggage claim and security, getting kids to the right parents, it’s going to get late. Don’t feel like you have to hang around.”

“I thought I’d come to the airport,” Blaine said. “I could drive your car, save you a cab ride. If that’s okay with you.”

“Okay,” Kurt smiled. “I’ll text you the flight number.”

“Okay,” Blaine said, and Kurt could hear that he was grinning. “One more thing- I saw that they’re livestreaming the competition online. Would it be weird if I watched or..?”

“No, watch if you like,” Kurt said. “It’d be good for them to know that the  _famous_  Blaine Anderson is watching.”

“I’m famous?”

“They like to watch old New Directions competition tapes to get ideas and inspiration, and you’re their favorite,” Kurt explained. “They were watching our nationals one afternoon when I dropped in on them and they were all so busy fawning over you that they didn’t even  _recognize_  me”

“I’m honored,” Blaine laughed.

“You should be,” Kurt said. “They’re on thirty-fifth, by the way. Alphabetical order by state. In case you don’t want to sit through every single performance waiting.”

“Good luck,” Blaine said. “Not that they need it, I’m sure.”

“Thank you. Work hard.”

“I’ll try,” Blaine said. “See you Saturday.”

“See you Saturday,” Kurt echoed and after a pause, Blaine hung up.

Kurt clutched the silent phone to his chest and took a deep, shuddering breath. Blaine was going to be watching. Blaine was going to meet him at the airport. He was going to be there when Kurt got home, and Kurt felt warmth bloom in his chest as he realized the certainty of it, the certainty of something so simple that the Kurt of two years previously hadn’t been able to rely on. Blaine was going to be there, he was always going to be there and Kurt’s heart wanted to take the risk but his head still didn’t know if it was worth it. He couldn’t handle losing Blaine again, and their history pointed at it going that way.  _Past results do not indicate future performance._ It was his favorite teacher cliché. He wanted to believe in it like he made teenagers believe in it.

"…And now, representing Ohio, from William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, the New Directions!"

In the wings, Kurt thought he might vomit. John looked pale and hugged himself as the first number started. And they were killing it; every note was in tune, every step in its place, slick and practiced and suddenly the long days of rehearsal in the hot theater and the even hotter hotel conference hall were worth it. Kurt didn’t realize he was crying until a drop of salty liquid forced itself through his closed lips, and he didn’t know if it was from pride or reminiscence or both. He thought of Blaine at home, watching the competition, watching these kids perform their final number, perform  _their_  song, and something somewhere in the back of his mind clicked but couldn’t acknowledge it right then. The audience stood, cheered, applauded vociferously and he was running back to their dressing room to beat them back.

Kurt was pouring glasses of non-alcoholic champagne when the New Directions piled into the room, ecstatic and sweaty and celebratory. They had given their best performance, they had done all they could and they drank the carbonated white grape juice like the real thing, toasting and laughing. The high continued through the remainder of the performances, the sound of them through the speakers drowned out by the sounds of celebration. Kurt felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and smiled at the text from Blaine, before shouting to gain the group’s attention.

“I just thought you’d like to know that your favorite member of the New Directions circa 2012 was watching online, and he says that if you don’t win it’s a travesty.”

The group cheered at the validation from their idol and celebrated raucously through the next fifteen performances, but the mood dropped like lead at the intercom announcement that the judges had retired to consider their choices. Their fate was being decided somewhere in the guts of the theater and it was just a waiting game now.

They needn’t have worried. The rest of the day was a complete blur, filled with singing and dancing and cheering and thirteen of the happiest teenagers in the universe. Kurt and John split the cost of the fanciest dinner New Haven had to offer, and the hotel, hearing of their victory, decorated the conference hall for them to have their own party with music and a bartender creating beautifully colored mocktails. They were winners and tonight there would be no curfew, no lights-out-before-midnight, just a long, thrilling celebration.

Kurt left them to it around eleven - John had already gone to bed, exhausted, and Kurt had verified that the staff weren’t going to let any of them leave the building, and that they were going to send them all back to their rooms at one. Kurt knew that the celebrations would likely continue in one of the tiny bedrooms, but that was okay tonight. He called Blaine in the elevator, itching to fill his time alone with him, to hear his voice.

“We won!” Kurt breathed, laughing, before Blaine could even say hello.

“I know,” Blaine laughed. “I watched. They were amazing.”

“They were amazing,” Kurt said. “It’s so much harder than it was for us and they  _won_.”

“I assume you’re having a good night.”

“The hotel put on a party for them. We took them out for dinner. I may have had some champagne,” Kurt said, fumbling to unlock his door. “But it was me or the kids, so really it was for the greater good.”

“I’m sure it was,” Blaine laughed, and Kurt breathed deep at the way his heart fluttered at Blaine’s laugh. Finally forcing his way inside, Kurt fell backwards onto the bed, bouncing once in a way that made his tipsy head spin, and kicked his shoes a little too violently across the room.

“Listen,” Kurt started. “I think I might have made a decision. Maybe. I think… by the time we land.”

“Oh really?”

“Mmhmm. So, if you want a… discussion…”

“Sunday?”

“Sunday. We can get lunch?”

“Lunch sounds good,” Blaine said. “And… you know that whatever you decide is okay, right? It’s totally down to you. All the balls are in your court.”

“I know,” Kurt said, trying not to laugh at the word ‘balls’. “I’m grateful for that. And… I think the choice I’m making is the right choice. If I decide what I think I’ve decided I’m going to decide.”

“That… okay, yeah, I think that makes sense,” Blaine said, struggling through Kurt’s tired, champagne-soaked logic.

“Shut up, you’re lucky to be getting any kind of sense out of me right now.”

“Go to bed,” Blaine laughed. “And, Kurt? Pass my congratulations on?”

“I will,” Kurt said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night. And we’ll  _discuss_  on Sunday.”

“Yes, we will.”

“Goodnight, Kurt.”

“Goodnight, Blaine.”

Kurt couldn’t sleep. He’d heard a stampede of happy voices pass his room, and they had been silent since the doors all banged shut. The buzz of champagne and victory was all but worn off, and Kurt was just laying there, in his chilly hotel bed, turning his decision over and over in his mind. He was going to see Blaine soon, and it felt as though they had been apart for weeks, not days. Their discussion needed to be serious, needed to cover everything. Setting out the details of the arrangement, figuring out how they could possibly be them again. Kurt had so many questions that he knew Blaine couldn’t really answer any better than he could. How would it work this time? Where would they go? How would they live? What were their goals, their ambitions, their hopes and dream? How could they forge a new relationship and rekindle an old one all at once?  _Could_  they be together? What made this time different geographically, emotionally, practically? Where did they want to end up? And how were they going to get there?

Blaine would try to find answers, Kurt knew, because he wanted it to work. Kurt was certain of that, as certain as he could be. His stomach ached in a different way, filled not with excitement and nerves but with knots, with the fear that it would all just break apart again in months or years or decades.

Kurt wished he was psychic, wished he could see twenty, fifty years into the future and know for sure if he was doing the right thing. His heart knew it during  _Teenage Dream -_ honestly,his heart knew it in the cardiac ward waiting room.

Every lifetime, Kurt thought. Every single damn one.


	9. Eight

Someone from the school had called the airline, and at the check in desk, the group was informed that they had been upgraded to first class as a result of their victory at a national championship. They got full use of the first class lounge, and, once they piled onto the plane, had the entire cabin to themselves. The kids took a row each at first, spreading themselves out and sprawling across the plush, comfortable seats, but they soon formed small groups when they realized that their configuration limited conversation. They were waited on and given limitless soft drinks and snacks, had a wide range of in-flight entertainment and the pilot visited with them once they were airborne to congratulate them on their win. They were treated like rock stars, and Kurt was sure that this, out of everything, would be something that the group of assorted lower-middle class Midwestern kids remembered forever. They were first off the plane, first through baggage claim, and they walked into arrivals before anyone else, watched by the crowd of people waiting to meet their loved ones. The kids fell into their parents’ arms, hugging and beaming and laughing, each of them tired but exhilarated. Kurt and John made the rounds, ensuring that each kid was back with each parent and having a discussion with each of them, accepting congratulations and making sure the parents knew what a joy their little darling had been on the trip. Soon the kids were all gone, John was gone and Kurt looked around the rest of the thinning crowd, searching. Blaine was standing at the side of the arrivals gate, quietly, patiently, holding two coffee cups and wearing a huge grin on his face. Kurt walked up to him, smiling hard, and hugged him tight.

"Congratulations," Blaine said, attempting to hug him back with his hands full of coffee. Once they broke apart, Blaine sniffed both cups before handing Kurt one. "Here, that’s yours. Cinnamon and a shot of something stronger."

"Mm, Irish coffee," Kurt said, laughing after a sip. "Strong. Thank you."

"Thought you might need it. And you definitely deserve it."

"It’s good," Kurt said, taking another mouthful. "Stressful week."

"Wonderful week, though?" Blaine said.

"Oh yeah. Brought back a lot of memories,” Kurt smiled.

Blaine laughed. “Let’s get you home. You can tell me all about it on the drive. And drink more. It’s good for you.”

"Alcohol tastes good," Kurt mumbled into his cup as Blaine too his case out of his hands and dragged it behind himself. "The champagne we had wasn’t great, John bought it and he’s cheap. This, however, is very good. I like this a lot."

"You earned it," Blaine laughed. "I’ve parked on the eighth floor of the parking lot. I know it’s a trek but it was the closest I could get. Apparently Sunday nights are a very popular time for people to be arriving."

"Who would’ve guessed?" Kurt said, laughing and looking around at the rapidly emptying arrivals hall.

"Beats me too," Blaine shrugged, and they stepped into the elevator to go to the inexplicably busy parking lot.

Kurt drank his coffee too quickly, and the combination of caffeine and whiskey, as he had now identified it, left Kurt with a nice buzz - enough to make him drift between chattering incessantly and slumping with his cheek against the window, almost asleep. Ohio had never felt so good. He could sleep late tomorrow, ignore his grading, not even think about a single word of the French language. He could think about nothing but Blaine and their future together. Maybe all of Kurt’s questions could all be answered and all his worries allayed on their lunch date, or maybe they could never be answered, maybe in twenty or thirty or fifty years they’d still be wondering how Kurt could trust Blaine again, maybe they’d still not know where they were supposed to end up, maybe they’d know then if it was wrong or right. Kurt didn’t put too much belief in things like chance and fate and destiny - they always seemed too flimsy, putting too much blame on cosmic forces and not enough blame on solid human intentions. He didn’t think he was  _destined_  to end up with Blaine, exactly. But they seemed to end up that way, whatever the situation, whatever caused them to part - they found each other again. Blaine was the dreamer, the fantastical one, the believer in destiny. His proposal speech, all those years ago, said everything - in every lifetime, every version of themselves would find each other eventually. Kurt had thought it a nice idea at the time, but now he was really beginning to believe that maybe they were somehow linked. That they couldn’t work in their first lifetime, as kids with big ideas. They couldn’t work in their second lifetime, as young adults with broken ideas. Maybe their third lifetime, their adult lifetime, would be the one that stuck. Or maybe there would be another and another and another, but Kurt had a feeling that, however many lifetimes it took, at the end of them all his obituary (or Blaine’s, but he preferred to think of his own) would read that he was loved and missed eternally by one Blaine Anderson, husband, lover, soulmate.

Soulmate. Kurt liked that. He never had before, but now he did. Blaine had always liked it. Maybe they couldn’t work before because Kurt hadn’t believed in the concept of what they really were. Maybe he was beginning to and that was why they would work this time. Or maybe that coffee was stronger than Blaine had let on and his brain was drunk and babbling, and shit- what if he’d said any of that out loud? Kurt jerked alert and Blaine laughed at the steering wheel.

"You okay there?"

"I think I zoned out for a minute," Kurt said, breathing deeply. "I didn’t- was I speaking?"

"I think I heard some mumbles," Blaine said. "Nothing too clear. Were you thinking about something salacious?"

"Something like that," Kurt shrugged. "I - I think I’m just tired. And maybe a bit drunk. It’s been a long week."

"Don’t I know it," Blaine said, and briefly looked over at Kurt to share a smile. "Sleep if you want, I don’t mind."

"No, it’s okay, I’ll stay awake now. How far are we from home?"

"About ten miles," Blaine said. "Roads are pretty clear, there’s no traffic, it shouldn’t be long before you’re in bed."

"My own bed," Kurt breathed. "Such luxury I’d never imagined."

"Hotel not up to snuff?" Blaine laughed, and Kurt nodded. "I can empathize."

"I thought you liked the hotel?"

"It’s nice enough," Blaine said. "It’s hardly a crappy, one star motel, but it’s- it’s not a home. I think I’m getting cabin fever."

"Guest bedroom," Kurt said sternly. "You’ve been told enough times that it’s there for you to use, Blaine."

"I know,” Blaine said, almost petulantly. “I think I might have to finally take you guys up on the offer. For a little while, at least."

"As long as you need," Kurt said.

"As long as… it wouldn’t make things awkward between us?"

"Why would it?" Kurt smiled and Blaine nodded in acknowledgment and kept driving, smiling hard as he focused straight ahead.


	10. Nine

His bed was comfortable and Kurt was thoroughly annoyed. He had spent so many mornings with an alarm going off obnoxiously at exactly six thirty that his body apparently freaked out at six thirty-one when there was no alarm and forced him awake anyway. He couldn’t get back to sleep, so by seven he was dragging himself grumpily downstairs to fix himself a giant mug of strong coffee and as much cream cheese as a bagel could hold. His head ached. He had definitely been too tired for Blaine’s whiskey with a shot of coffee- which, he was now almost certain, were the more accurate proportions of the drink Blaine had provided. He’d slept well though, apart from his unreasonably early awakening, but as he drank his coffee and the world became a little clearer sip by sip, he thought of it less and less as a bad thing. It meant that he had more time to himself - he could read or take a long shower, which he desperately needed after a week of his terrible hotel shower and crashing straight into bed after a flight. He had the whole morning to get ready for lunch, for Blaine, for discussion-having and decision-making and that felt great. A whole morning to relax - he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one of those. His breakfast demolished (and he had used, without guilt, an entire previously unopened tub of cream cheese), he showered long and luxuriously, exfoliating and soaping and massaging his scalp with shampoo until his arms were sore and jerking off, hard and fast because it had been a week and that was far too long. He let the pulsing, scalding hot water soothe his aching muscles until it cooled to lukewarm, and he escaped just before it switched straight to ice cold. He wrapped a warm towel around his waist, shaking excess water from his hair and, with water still clinging in droplets to most of his upper body, left the bathroom, ready to run into his own bedroom and escape the suddenly oppressively cold air in the hallway between the two.

When he opened the door, he was faced with Blaine carrying an overnight bag, his cheeks flushed and his throat bobbing hard as he took in the unexpected sight of a wet, naked Kurt in his way.

"Sorry - uh, you said… guest bedroom, and I figured, early, while I’m not getting in the way…" Blaine stuttered. Kurt felt himself blushing so hard that he was pretty sure the water on his skin was going to boil from the heat underneath.

"Oh, yeah, right, go ahead. I was just… showering…"

Kurt wasn’t sure why exactly he felt so exposed - he and Blaine had been naked together, very naked, very recently - but he knew the conversation they were going to have later, and he was getting into the mindset early. The early stage of a new relationship - and this budding new relationship, this… crush - which, until anything was made official, was what it really was - had just been faced with naked wet Kurt in a hallway with clothed, equally embarrassed Blaine. They quickly crossed their paths and ran into their respective bedrooms, and suddenly the reality of the situation hit Kurt- if he was going to be dating Blaine again, there would be no dating. There would be no beginning of a relationship, no reenactment of the teenage hearts and flowers and innocence that they had once had. Blaine was living in his house - or lodging there, at least, but he was going to be three rooms down the hall from Kurt’s bedroom. It would be something, right away, it would have to be serious and definite and solid. They would immediately be KurtandBlaine again, and Kurt wasn’t sure why he had thought that being together again would involve anything else. There would be encounters in hallways and busy bathrooms and everything that came with living in the same house. Kurt had imagined this being like the beginning of a new relationship but really they would be picking up where they left off, picking up where they were before everything went wrong. And actually, that sounded okay, too. But they didn’t have to stay. They could go anywhere. It would work this time, it had to work this time. They were old enough and scarred enough to make sensible choices, to define their means in realistic terms and live within them, to make long term goals and work towards achieving them. This was never going to be a new relationship, just a new version of an old relationship, just as it had been when they reunited the first time, just as it had been when Blaine first moved to New York. Transitions were made, shifts in the dynamic, shifts between being young and stupid to young and stupid and engaged and apart, and then young and stupid and engaged and together. A new shift, a new dynamic, a new way of living their lives, but the same people living it. It was all still there, Kurt was sure it was all still there somewhere, but they just had to find a new way to live together.

That new way couldn’t be under his parents’ roof, not for long. Leaving would mean leaving everything he’d worked for behind - his job, his students. He’d break the hearts of every kid he got interested in speaking a language other than English. But the only place he had ever felt truly at home, truly comfortable and alive and invigorated, before the bad times, had been New York. He needed to go back, and he hoped that Blaine would join him and that they could navigate it again together.

Kurt pulled into the parking lot of the coffee shop where they were planning to have lunch - outside of Lima, but only just, and surrounded by countryside and fields that proved that they weren’t in the city any more. It was nice there- Kurt had visited several times after discovering it on a long drive after an even longer day, and the coffee was some of the best he’d had. He turned off the engine and looked over at Blaine, sitting nervously in the passenger seat.

"Look, I- I want to get this part out of the way here," Kurt said, unbuckling his seatbelt to twist around and face him. Blaine did the same in anticipation. "Because- well, a lot has changed, times have moved on and the political outlook is different and everything but… this is still Ohio, there are still a lot of people who haven’t changed and I - I want to make sure we do this part in private."

"Okay," Blaine said, nodding and smiling a little. Kurt threw a quick glance behind his shoulder, out of the driver’s side window, then leaned forward, reaching one hand up to cup Blaine’s cheek, and kissed him softly.

"That’s my decision," he said, quietly, and Blaine smiled.

"I like that decision very much."

"So, now that’s out of the way, we should go inside," Kurt said.

"Yes," Blaine said. "Inside."

The coffee shop was small but busy, and Blaine just managed to grab a free table in a quiet corner while Kurt ordered coffee at the counter, with two huge bear claws, and settled at the table opposite Blaine.

"We have to figure out some stuff," Kurt said. "If we’re going to be, well,  _us_  again. And I have a list of discussion points…”

"I’m shocked, Mr. Hummel" Blaine smirked. "Go ahead, hit me with them."

"Okay - first, where?"

"Where? Just where?"

"Where?" Kurt said. "I don’t want to live with my parents forever, and I don’t want to be a teacher forever, and it’s maybe a little bit sooner than I had imagined but I think… I want to leave again. Go home."

"You’re at home," Blaine said, frowning, and Kurt took a deep breath.

"I mean, I want to go back to New York."

"Oh," Blaine said. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. I don’t have a permanent home right now, I don’t have a permanent job, especially now your dad is healthy enough to do all his own paperwork and grease work again. So why not? Why not go back to New York?"

"Okay," Kurt grinned. "But we have to be practical about it this time. I mean it. We get jobs, one job each with normal hours, and we live somewhere we can afford even if it’s not Manhattan. We have to do it properly."

"I agree," Blaine said. "But, what about teaching? What about grad school?"

"I’ll graduate before we leave, and, well, I don’t want to teach forever. As soon as the kids can’t relate to me, as soon as I’m just this old guy who tries to make them speak French and calls 2010 the good old days, I’m out."

"So, you’ve got a good couple of years in you yet," Blaine said.

"Ever the charmer," Kurt grinned. "What about you?"

"I guess I’ll look for something more permanent. Before we move, though. I don’t really know what though - maybe something in an office. I know it’s dull and I’ll hate it but it’d be something steady and I could keep looking for something more exciting in the meantime."

"Okay," Kurt said. "Just don’t make yourself miserable on my account. Find something you’ll like, at least, before we go anywhere. I can’t really leave work before the school year’s out anyway, and there’s the whole summer to figure stuff out too."

Blaine nodded and took a mouthful of coffee.

"You had more points?"

"Yes," said Kurt. "So that’s where out of the way. How?"

"How?"

"How- I don’t know, uh, how can I trust you again? Because I want to, but… I guess part of me is still scared."

“I… don’t know,” Blaine admitted, and Kurt frowned. “I just mean that things change all the time, people change all the time. You can’t know for sure that things are going to turn out right this time. But I promise with all my heart that I have absolutely no intention of ever letting myself even remotely hurt you ever again.”

Kurt nodded. “I swear if you do, your balls will be in a vice so quickly you won’t be able to breathe.”

"Threats of violence are always good," Blaine laughed. "I want this to work more than anything. You’re everything, Kurt. And I think I once babbled something in a nervous wreck about universes and us and-"

"That in every universe, you and I would always find each other? That our hands were meant to hold each other, fearlessly and forever?" Kurt said, smiling at the memory, and Blaine reached out and took Kurt’s hand.

"Something like that," he said, softly. "And I meant it. I still mean it."

"Okay," Kurt nodded. "I believe you.”

"Next?" Blaine asked.

"What?"

"What?"

"What are we?" Kurt said. "I mean, what is the definition of our renewed relationship going to be? Do we start all over again the best we can? Or do we pick up, uh,  _exactly_  where we left off?”

"You mean, are we going to be boyfriends or fiancés?"

"I guess, yeah," Kurt said. "I just think we should be clear on what exactly we are."

"Well, how about I leave that one entirely up to you," Blaine said. "You get to decide. You have the ring still, right? So if ever you wanted to put it back onto a certain finger, then that’s okay with me. And if you don’t, then that’s okay too."

Kurt smiled. “Or what if I did the proposing this time?”

"That would be okay too," Blaine grinned. "As always, your speed, not mine."

"And, uh, our arrangement. As it currently stands, with a view to leaving but not leaving immediately, with you in the bedroom down the hall from mine. In my parents’ house. With my parents. Do we tell them? Is it awkward if we sleep in the same room?"

"It’s your house, Kurt," Blaine said. "Your parents. I’ll be as obvious or as discreet as you want. Do you want to tell them?"

"Yes," Kurt said. "I want to tell them. And I think we should be in the same room. Though if you want to keep the guest room too that’s fine, I don’t have a lot of storage and it’s basically all taken up anyway-"

"The guest room will be my storage room slash dressing room," Blaine laughed. "So, we’re telling them?"

"Today. I mean, we might as well, they’re going to pick up on something and they already know you stayed the night before I went to nationals."

"They knew?"

"I kind of told them before I forced them to leave the house," Kurt admitted. "They were bugging me and I was tired and horny and I wanted them to leave so you and I could finish talking and so I told them and got very embarrassed and Carole dragged my dad out of the house to go to breakfast."

"You told them," Blaine laughed, "Sometimes you do things and you say things and I just get this flashback memory of that shy sixteen year old, so afraid of sex, and now- so grown, so confident and I love that I got to watch that transformation."

"You sound like my dad,” Kurt laughed. “You were the entire reason it happened. You were so irresistible, I couldn’t repress my latent sexuality any longer, I just had to have you."

"Oh, now it’s all coming out," Blaine laughed. "Kurt Hummel, secret nymphomaniac."

"Not so secret, I think you’ll recall," Kurt laughed. "And I seem to remember that you loved it."

"So,"  Kurt continued once they’d stopped laughing enough to speak. "We’re going to be together again."

"We are," said Blaine.

"And we’re going to go back to New York."

"Yes."

"Wow," Kurt said, breathing out a laugh. "I just- I hadn’t imagined this would happen. Ever. I thought I was over it, I thought we were really done, but-"

"But you’re happy, right?"

"I’m so happy," Kurt smiled.

"Good," Blaine said. "Because all I’ve ever wanted is to make you happy."

"I know," Kurt smiled. "I love that you make that your life goal."

"It’s not a bad one, as life goals go," Blaine smiled. "I love you, Kurt. I always have and I always will and I promise that this time, I won’t screw things up. This time, it’s for keeps. You and me, we’re stuck now. Forever. You in?"

"I’m in," Kurt said, nodding. "I will happily be stuck with you forever."

"Good," Blaine smiled. "This is really good coffee, by the way."

"Isn’t it?" Kurt laughed. "I found this place completely by accident; I come here every week now. I told them it’s better than anything I had in New York, which is basically true, other than-"

"That place in Brooklyn!" Blaine said. "That coffee was milked out of an angel, I swear, it was so good."

"But this comes a close second," Kurt said. "And the bear claws are amazing, trust me, I’ve gained ten pounds since I started coming here."


	11. Ten

The car ride home was filled with nervous giggles and brushes of hands and fingers, both of them suddenly hit with a rush of newness amongst the old, the rekindled, the usual. They sang along to every song on the radio and managed to harmonize perfectly, even with songs they had never sung together before. It was perfect, like they knew every single move the other was going to make a second before they made it, and yet there was still a nervous anticipation about it. Kurt took Blaine’s hand after he had parked in the driveway and led him silently into the house.

"Dad?" he called out. "Carole?"

The lack of a response or of any noise coming from anywhere in the house gave the answer Kurt was looking for.

"We have an empty house," he said, turning to Blaine with a smirk on his face.

"It would appear that way," Blaine responded.

"And we are recently reunited."

"Yes, we are."

"Well, then, whatever will we do to celebrate?" Kurt asked, his voice low, and Blaine flushed at the sound of it, with the memory of it.

"We could… watch TV?" Blaine replied, coyly. "Or bake a cake. Or-"

Kurt cut him off by kissing him fiercely, pressing Blaine against the wall next to the front door and snaking his hand around and cupping Blaine’s ass through his jeans.

"Or we could do that," Blaine said, breathlessly, and pulled Kurt closer by his waist, pressing their hips hard together.

"Uh huh," Kurt nodded, kissing Blaine again before grabbing his hand and leading him up the stairs, not-so-subtly swinging his hips as he went.

Safely in Kurt’s room, clothes were shed within seconds, and their mostly-hard cocks pressed together as they moved to the bed, touching everywhere they could. It was urgent, but it felt  _more_  - it felt important, the moment had gravity and it needed to be preserved. It felt like the first time, like they hadn’t ever done this before although that was plainly untrue. Every touch felt electric - every brush of fingertips over hipbones, every kiss on necks and shoulders and clavicles and lips, every bump of knees and teasing brush of skin on skin. Kneeling on the bed together, Kurt reached over to grab his lube bottle from the nightstand drawer and pumped a generous handful, reaching down to his cock and Blaine’s hovering above it. No time for more, no time for preparation or figuring out positions, Kurt wrapped his fingers around their cocks bringing them together and giving them both a generous coating as they ground together, eliciting groans as everything became slicker and smoother and more and more sensitive.

Kurt brought his clean hand up to cup the back of Blaine’s head, bringing him closer to kiss him, open-mouthed and lazy. Everything felt like so much, was so overwhelming and Blaine began thrusting shallowly into Kurt’s fist, intensifying the moment further still. Kurt tightened his grip a little, timing his own thrusts with Blaine’s so that that they moved together. Blaine came with a loud, broken moan and Kurt breathed steadily and stilled his hand while Blaine caught himself. Blaine was red-cheeked, with a few beads of sweat gathered around his hairline. With his hands on Kurt’s back, he guided him backwards until he was lying down, swinging his feet from underneath him as he went. Kurt was aching for it now and Blaine worked quickly with his hand, heat in Kurt’s belly spiraling fast and tight and then exploding through his body, to his fingertips. Blaine bent down and kissed Kurt hard, deep, and then stretched to try to reach a box of tissues just a little too far from him. He fell, faceplanting on the mattress, and they both dissolved into fits of giggles.

Blaine was soft and sleepy as he curled into Kurt’s side while Kurt was cleaning himself up. Kurt tossed the tissues he had been using aside and shuffled down into the bed, laying on his side to face Blaine, their noses just touching. Blaine raised his hand and stroked Kurt’s face gently, running his fingertips lightly from his earlobe down along his jaw to his chin, stroking the pad of his thumb across the protrusion before flopping his hand back down onto the bed.

“You have stubble,” Blaine said quietly.

“Yeah,” Kurt whispered. “No time to shave.”

“I like it. It’s soft.”

“Well, that’s because instead of hitting puberty, it just sort of looked at me one day.”

“I can think of several places you definitely hit puberty,” Blaine said, glancing briefly down and smirking at Kurt’s laughter, suddenly loud against their quiet little cocoon. “Your face just wasn’t one of them. And I love your soft, fuzzy chin, by the way.”

“Then maybe I’ll keep it,” Kurt said softly, and then reconsidered. “No, I won’t keep it, but I’ll give you the gesture.”

“I will take that gesture,” Blaine said. “And I will keep it in a little box in my heart.”

“Only a little one?”

“Well, it was only a gesture…”

Blaine laughed and Kurt tickled his side suddenly, digging his fingers in under Blaine’s ribs and making him squawk, squirming away, laughing breathlessly as Kurt continued his relentless attack.

Kurt eventually stopped, and Blaine managed to regain his breath, calming down quickly. Kurt leaned forward and kissed him softly.

“I love you,” he said earnestly, and Blaine smiled, the skin beside his eyes crinkling.

“I love you too.”

The world could have ended around them and they wouldn’t have noticed, couldn’t have noticed, wrapped up entirely in each other, touching and stroking and kissing lightly, gently, with all the time in the world.

Kurt felt like his entire world had come back. He had Blaine; they had a brand new future. They were going to survive New York this time. It might not have been the way that they had imagined it as starry-eyed teenagers with dreams of hitting the big time, but it would be theirs. One day, they’d get the beautiful Upper East Side apartment or the big house in the suburbs. One day they would get married, they could have children. Lying there in their quiet, intimate embrace, staring into Blaine’s eyes, Kurt just  _knew_  that it was going to work this time. This time, they were going to win.

Kurt sat up, leaving Blaine to look up at him awkwardly, frowning. The ring was still on Kurt’s right hand, where it had lived for more than two years, and Kurt stared at it for a moment while Blaine sat up too. Blaine had given him the option, and Kurt knew what he wanted to do. He took the ring in his fingers and pulled it off, switched it between hands, and quickly replaced it on his left hand. He turned to look at Blaine, and Blaine was beaming.

“You sure?”

“I’m really sure,” Kurt said, and leaned in to kiss Blaine hard, like nothing else mattered, and nothing else did.

Blaine started giggling, beaming, and Kurt raised an eyebrow at him, trying to assemble his face into something that looked stern despite his apparently permanent grin.

"I just- we’re engaged again," Blaine said.

"We never stopped," Kurt said. "We just… took a hiatus."

"A hiatus?" Blaine said. "I like it."

"And now hiatus is over and we move forward into the next season of our lives."

"Okay, you’ve been watching way too much TV," Blaine said, hugging Kurt close and kissing the top of his head. "I can’t wait to marry you."

"Me either," Kurt sighed. "But we’re doing it properly this time. No more stupidity. We’ll act like adults."

"Like real adults," Blaine agreed. "Adults who are going to get real adult jobs and a real adult apartment that they can real adultly afford, and get real adult married."

"Exactly," Kurt laughed. "Just like that."

"I love you," Blaine said again. "If I hadn’t already made that abundantly clear."

"You had," Kurt said, pressing a kiss to Blaine’s bare shoulder. "But it’s still nice to hear it."

When Burt and Carole returned home from the grocery store that evening, they were met by two boys, their two boys, snuggled together on the sofa in a way that was far removed from their apparent  _just friends_  status they’d been touting for far too long. They were interrupted by Burt clearing his throat loudly in the doorway, Carole at his shoulder grinning as they broke apart in surprise.

"You guys, uh, okay?" he said, grinning, and Kurt choked for a second before standing up, taking Blaine’s hand to pull him up with him.

"I suppose you should be the first to know- we’re back together. Officially," Kurt said, smiling hard. "And- well, it was my idea, but considering that we were before we broke up…" Kurt held up his left hand to finish the sentence, displaying the ring that for so long had been languishing on his right hand, pretending to have no meaning at all.

Carole rushed forward to gather them both in a hug, grinning hard and gesturing for Burt to join them - which he did, eventually, smiling just as hard.

"When did this happen?" Carole said excitedly.

"Today, kind of," Blaine said, ducking his head modestly, hiding his grin.

"We were kind of… pussyfooting around it for a while, and we decided to talk once I got back from Nationals, and so we talked and we made a decision and now we’re back together." Kurt added. "And we’re going back to New York."

"Really?" Burt said. "After everything that-"

"I know," Kurt said. "We’re going to take the summer to figure everything out, and we’ll do it properly this time."

Kurt was smiling so hard, grasping Blaine’s hand so hard, that his cheeks and his hand felt like they might just drop off, but he didn’t care if they did.

Kurt sighed heavily into the pillow as he curled up into a cold bed - half a bed now, and that gave him a little jolt of happiness. He had formally declined the offer of his post-graduation job at McKinley and had started to tell his students that he wouldn’t be back to teach them after the summer. It had been a rough day and students he didn’t even think cared had been visibly upset at the news. Blaine closed the laptop in bed beside him and bent down to tuck it safely under the bed, before wrapping his arm around Kurt’s waist.

"You okay?"

"Just a bit sad," Kurt shrugged. I’m going to miss some of the kids, that’s all."

"I’ve looked up flights to LA," Blaine said. "We can stay as we long as we need. Cooper’s given up being mad at me for leaving him now he knows we’re back together and he said we can stay. We can get some sun, relax. They have great food, if you look past the juice bars and health food stores. And we can go celebrity spotting, and Cooper can get us into some exclusive celebrity parties, and we can ogle the cute topless boys and make sandcastles and ride on segways…"

"You’re suddenly very enthusiastic about LA," Kurt said, burrowing into Blaine’s side and stroking lightly at his chest. "Makes a change."

"I didn’t have anyone to share it with before,” Blaine said, kissing Kurt’s forehead. “It’s hot there, and the boys on the beach really are a bonus…”

"Pervert," Kurt said, and leaned up to kiss Blaine softly on the lips. "Poor hot boys being ogled by a creepy old man."

"I’m not an old man!"

"Hey, you’re almost twenty five, that’s over the hill in LA,"

"Shut up," Blaine grinned. "I’ll show you just how not far over the hill I’m not- that didn’t make any sense, did it?"

"Not a bit," Kurt said. "I love you."

"Well, if speaking nonsense gets me that I’ll do it more often.”

"You mean, more than you do already?" Kurt smirked.

"Hush, you," Blaine said, and swooped down to quiet Kurt with his mouth against his, softly, lazily kissing under the sheets until they were more breathing into each other mouths than kissing, so sleepily moving their lips slower and slower until they fell asleep with their faces pressed together, sharing the same humid air, with arms wrapped around each other, clinging as if letting go would cause them to drown or float away. Nothing was painful. Nothing hurt. Soon, they would forget that a separation had ever happened. In twenty years, they’d remember the good things, the quiet moments, the times they fell asleep while planning their lives together. Because in every lifetime that they had ever lived, they had chosen to come back and find each other and fall in love all over again. And this lifetime was no different.


	12. Epilogue

"I can’t believe we’re back in Bushwick," Blaine laughed as the moving truck pulled up outside their new apartment building - just a few blocks away from the building they had lived in when they were just kids trying to figure out school and engagement and living together for the first time. “Remember when we moved out and swore we’d never live in the same place twice?”

"Hey, the price is right, we know the area, it’s a great deal. And it means we’re back," Kurt grinned. "We’re home."

Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand tight and leaned over to kiss him, before jumping out of the truck. The driver helped them upstairs with the few boxes they actually had to put in the moving truck - things that weren’t being shipped from California or Ohio, or that weren’t  _still_  in storage from the last time they moved out. They were at last reunited with their city, their home.

Before they had left for their summer with Cooper, Kurt had graduated with flying colors. He’d easily found a job at an affluent private school outside the city who were willing to deal with all manner of paperwork in order to snag a young, talented French teacher with the achievements he’d already attained in his short career, and especially one who was willing to take on the school’s flagging show choir and pump some life back into it. Kurt had imagined teaching in New York to involve inner city kids with knives and guns and metal detectors in the hallway, but this school made Dalton look like a landfill. It was the opposite of everything he had thought it might be, and it had made him begin to reconsider teaching as a real career. Blaine had reached out to some old friends and contacts of Coopers and got a job in the offices of a Broadway theater. It was clerical work; administration and phonecalls, online bookings and mailing out tickets to the few people who still preferred it that way, but it was a job on Broadway. It meant that he would hear of any upcoming audition opportunities, all the while working at a job connected to the thing he loved most. As a bonus, he would get free merchandise and discount tickets, a perk Kurt was already extremely fond of.

The new apartment was gorgeous. It was large, almost as big as the loft they had once had, with big bright windows and wooden floors, a huge bedroom with an en suite bathroom and king size bed. Kurt was enamored with the kitchen- all shining chrome and steel, accents of dark wood, an island in the middle with a marble counter all round. It came fully furnished, and the big, squishy sofa was so comfortable they felt like they might melt into it. The dining table was big enough to seat twelve, and Kurt couldn’t wait for their first dinner party- they could cook together in their new, beautiful kitchen and invite their friends around to share. It was a steal really, with cheap enough rent and utilities included, in a great building where the neighbors visited to introduce themselves and bring gifts of lasagna and casserole in case they needed a good meal after the big move.

It was going to work. Everything about this new life screamed that it was going to work. The wooden floors, the marble counters, the door with just one lock, the small balcony with a colorful selection of potted plants and a couple of chairs tucked underneath a table just big enough for two cups of coffee and a pot in the middle. There wasn’t an asshole landlord this time around - the building was owned and run by a sweet older couple who were there when they arrived, promised to drop by every so often just to check in, and made them swear to call if there were any problems, and they would either send someone over or be there themselves, no matter how small. It was exactly how it was supposed to be.

Blaine nestled into Kurt’s chest on the couch, settling between his legs and pulling his arms around his waist.

"Hey," Kurt murmured into the back of Blaine’s head. "You done unpacking?"

"I think so," Blaine said, yawning. “There wasn’t much room around your stuff, but I figured it out."

"We need a walk in closet."

"We don’t need a walk in closet," Blaine said.

"We’ll see," Kurt said. "Maybe when we get a house."

“Yeah,” Blaine mumbled, “When we get a house we can have a walk in closet. Two walk in closets. And one for the kids. One each.”

"Is our entire house going to be a walk in closet?"

"No," Blaine laughed." "We’re going to have a huge house. With reception rooms. And a pool. And a Bentley."

"You want a Bentley?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Because we’re not  _ever_  going to be able to afford a Bentley.”

"Dream big, Hummel," Blaine said, his eyelids drooping and his words slurring. "You’ve gotta dream big."

"Is that right?"

"Yep, you gotta dream big. Because then you get what you want. I dreamed big that I might get you back one day, and now look at me,” Blaine babbled. “I’m snuggling on the couch in my gorgeous new apartment with my gorgeous new-slash-old fiancé, and that’s you, because I got you back, because dreaming big worked, my friend."

"You’re sleepy," Kurt said, smiling as he kissed the back of Blaine’s hair. "I like it when you’re sleepy. You go all… floopy."

"Floopy?"

"Uh huh, floopy."

"What’s floopy?"

"Like you are now, All soft and mumbly and babbly."

"Floopy isn’t a word,"

"I just made it up," Kurt said. "Because it describes you perfectly. You’re floopy. I love your floopiness."

"Stop making up words and then making them into… adjectives? Adverbs? That was an adverb, right?"

"Go to bed," Kurt said, hugging Blaine tight to keep him close.

"Nuh uh," Blaine said, "Wanna snuggle with my man on our comfy comfy couch."

"It is really comfy, isn’t it?" Kurt said, shifting so that they both of them were closer to lying down than sitting.

"Comfiest sofa in the world. I’m getting it tested by the Guinness World Records guys, I mean it."

"Maybe it’s only so comfy because we’re so tired?"

"Maybe… I think it’s just really comfy. I think it’s made of clouds and angel hair and gremlin poop and dancing buttercups."

"Gremlin poop and dancing buttercups?"

"Uh huh," Blaine nodded. "I like our couch."

"I like it too,"

"I like our big kitchen and our bedroom and our bathroom and our balcony. Can we have breakfast on the balcony? "

"Definitely," Kurt said. "I want to have all my breakfasts on the balcony with you."

"Might be cold in winter," Blaine said. "Breakfast in the snow on the balcony isn’t the same."

"Only breakfasts in the sun on the balcony."

"We’ll get to keep our California tans," Blaine said.

"I don’t like my tan much," Kurt admitted, holding out an arm to inspect it. "I think it looks weird on me. I like pale much better."

"I like you all the ways," Blaine said, shifting further down the sofa to rest his head against Kurt’s chest above his heart. "I like you every way you come."

Kurt smiled and stroked his hand across gently through Blaine’s hair, rubbing his scalp gently until he was snoring slightly, snuffling against his shirt like a puppy. He thought about moving him but the other option was to stay there on his comfy, world record winning couch, with his fiancé asleep against his chest, in his new apartment with everything he had ever wanted right there in that room with him. And that sounded pretty good too. Some would say perfect.

It was perfect.


End file.
